Massachusetts state fair plagued by accidental iPhone 911 calls

Western Massachusetts' emergency dispatch teams covering the US east coast's biggest agricultural fair says it received nearly a dozen false alarms due to Apple's built-in SOS iPhone features in just days.

Fairgoers at The Big E, a state fair held annually in West Springfield, Massachusetts, are triggering Apple's built-in emergency SOS features, resulting in accidental calls to local 911 dispatchers.

West Springfield Police Sergeant Joseph LaFrance told WWLP there has been around a dozen "abandoned 911 calls" inside the fairgrounds in the last six days.

While the emergency responders haven't offered insight into what is causing the false alarms, it seems most likely that it's the Crash Detection feature. There are several instances rollercoasters and other amusement park rides setting this feature off.

Police officers are now asking callers to stay on the line if they hear dispatch or to pick up the phone if they receive a follow-up call.

False positives happen occasionally and are arguably better than not being triggered at all. But in the case of amusement park rides, such mistakes could be avoided by leaving devices with Collision Detection-style features with someone who isn't going on the ride for safekeeping.

Independent testing has offered mixed results when it comes to actually detecting a crash, with some having more success than others.

7 Comments

M68000 868 comments · 7 Years

About 1 year ago

I don’t have the latest phone and have to wonder if there is way to temporarily shut that crash feature off. If it had a suspend timer that could be ideal.

iOS_Guy80 899 comments · 5 Years

M68000 said:

I don’t have the latest phone and have to wonder if there is way to temporarily shut that crash feature off. If it had a suspend timer that could be ideal.

Yes you can. https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT213225

iOS_Guy80 said:

M68000 said:

I don’t have the latest phone and have to wonder if there is way to temporarily shut that crash feature off. If it had a suspend timer that could be ideal.

Yes you can. https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT213225

Thanks for that link. So, looks liike no timer to turn it back on if users turn off and forget about it. Also, Maybe amusement parks and other places this could happen will have to start hanging up signs about it for people to see. Wasting time and resources of police and emergency personnel is jot a cool thing. How long will it be before local governments demand Apple do something about it? Another idea would be to have the phone monitor location and check if it is in amusement park? Our phones already know where we are pretty much every minute LoL

coolfactor 2332 comments · 20 Years

Seems like they can geofence known destinations and temporarily disable Crash Detection when the user is known to be within that area. Permanent amusement parks is one good candidate. Ski hills are a second. Neither destination involves transportation within a vehicle, thereby negating the need for Crash Detection.

jgreg728 111 comments · 8 Years

I feel like the easy solution for this Crash Detection problem to this is to have an “Only On with CarPlay” option to toggle in Settings.