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American Airlines' passengers claim they heard mysterious 'moaning, grunting' noises on PA system

American Airlines has attributed the issue to a mechanical glitch though netizens have posted their own experiences on different flights

The in-flight announcement system of American Airlines has been acting strangely. Many passengers claimed to have heard strange moaning and grunting noises, and the airline's explanation of what was happening seems implausible at best. Nobody is aware of the perpetrators' identities or methods or what is causing this "phenomenon".

Emerson Collins, an actor and producer, according to BoingBoing, posted the first video on September 6 on a flight to Denver. However, Emerson is among several passengers who have had similar experiences on different American Airlines flights. 

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Similar incidents have been reported by other passengers since July. According to Gary Leff from 'View from the Wing', American Airlines said it was a mechanical issue. "American Airlines inspected the Boeing 737-800 as well as the PA system itself after these reports. They tell me, 'Maintenance determined the sounds were caused by an issue with the PA amplifier. There was no external access to the system,'” Leff said. 

Some passengers who have had similar experiences have highlighted the matter on Twitter. One said, ""Currently on AA1631 and someone keeps hacking into the PA and making moaning and screaming sounds the flight attendants are standing by their phones because it isn’t them and the captain just came on and told us they don’t think the flight systems are compromised so we will.." Another said, "My wife and I experienced this during an AA flight in July. To be clear, it was just sounds like the moans and groans of someone in extreme pain. The crew said that it had happened before, and had no explanation. Occurred briefly 3 or 4 times early in the flight, then stopped"

The Airbus 321 papers in this thread were discovered by professional reverse engineer, hardware hacker, and security expert Andrew Tierney (aka Cybergibbons), who is also perplexed.

This report, made by a flight attendant on an internal American Airlines message board and spotted by an aviation monitor, suggests some kind of remote exploit that has not yet been identified. However, there was no in-seat entertainment, at least on Emerson Collins' flight, which rules out it out as a potential attack vector.

One reasonable explanation comes from a Reddit post by "a former avionics guy" in the r/aviation section. 

This article contains remarks made on the Internet by individual people and organizations. MEAWW cannot confirm them independently and does not support claims or opinions being made online.