Abstract: A method and system for alerting an aircrew of terrorist activity in a cabin of an aircraft. When a terrorist or emergency situation is detected by a flight attendant, the flight attendant speaks an activation word, which turns the personal alert unit to an active mode. The flight attendant then says one or more specific words stored as a vocabulary within the personal alert unit. Upon recognition of a spoken word stored in the personal alert unit, the personal alert unit converts the recognized word or words into a signal sent to the cockpit via the ASU to the CDU. The CDU provides an indicator to the cockpit crew of the recognized words spoken by the flight attendant.