A321 fasten seat belt sign noice
 

Hi I'm new so if this is the wrong forum area excuse me.
Yesterday I was on a flight from Faro to Birmingham. We took off as normal and and it was all smooth until about 10000ft when we hit some chop which continued for about 30 minutes and was what I would call heavy turbulence. It smoothed out and the captain turned the seat belt sign off but instead of the hearing dull seat belt sign noise there were 3 beeps like an alarm was going off. At this point everyone in the cabin started looking at each other including the air hostesses. I was sat in row 7a and the crew had just started handing out drinks and were at about row 3 when the 3 beeps came over the pa. One of the air hostesses immiediatley stopped serving drinks and headed towards the flightdeck to see what had just happend. She had a look of worry and surprise on her face which didnt help me much and i'm a frequent flyer.
Just wondering if any of new guys have experianced the same thing and if you know what may have happend?
thanks
Harry

I wonder the same as you...never been on them though...but I hate going on a new aircraft type and not knowing what the chime means...I was on an A330 My travel and a Red Light came on, during turbulence...I think someone said on a forum that it was just a call from the cockpit...

As for the chime you had...I'm not sure, but on a Boeing...the sound of a seatbelt sign...on off on off on off (6 chimes) would mean big emergency...

The explanation is that you were on an Airbus.

Were the beeps more like low-pitched sounding dongs?

If so, it could have been the toilet smoke detector being activated. If it were the higher pitched dong, it could have been the seat belt being cycled on-off-on which would generate 3 dongs.

BUT if it was the toilet smoke detector, unless you saw the cabin crew running around with fire extinguishers and wearing smoke hoods and fire gloves it would have been a false alarm (for example hair spray can set off Airbus toilet smoke detectors)

If the cabin service resumed straight after the crew member had spoken to the flight crew then there would have been nothing to worry about :)

If the interphone is U/S then cycling the seatbelt sign is an indication of an ALERT CALL (this could explain the expression on their faces). Meaning the CC will stop the service and go to their station and await the call from the SCCM. Meanwhile the SCCM and the nearest Crew member will go onto the flight deck and expect/take a NITS briefing (emergency brief).


If nothing followed then It could be as simple as a slip on the switch. Or my guess the pilots needed their dinners. :ok:

B