I mean if you were a flight attendant and actually felt the plane was in danger wouldn't you?
If the amount of danger is below what I'm willing to accept I'll let it fly. Of course the amount of risk I'm willing to take depends on how easy it is to avoid it.
A simple announcement before takeoff is enough to cut the risk in half, a quick walk through the aisle to remind the hard of hearing that they really have to switch their gadgets off slashes it in half again, and telling passengers that the RF detector has picked up some live phones will let the number of offending Blackberries drop very close to zero. Yes, I've heard the RF detector message on more than one flight. If everyone keeps "forgetting" to switch their Nokias off RF detectors in the cabin may become as common as smoke detectors in the lavs.
My assumption is that the measurable interference caused by this small number of devices is so low as to have no (measurable) effect on the electronics in the plane
Assumptions are tricky beasts.
Originally Posted by IEEE, NASA
...the study found that intermodulation between some cellular phones caused emissions in the frequency bands used by an aircraft's GPS and distance-measuring equipment.
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In July 2003, it was reported to the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) that a cellular phone when turned on simultaneously interfered with three different aircraft GPS receivers, causing complete signal loss. The three GPS receivers were using three separate antennas, and were installed on a small aircraft. The phone was on, however, calls were not made during the incidents and subsequent tests.
In an email message to the FAA, the company who owned the airplane reported the subsequent tests taken to prove a clear and convincing direct relationship between the phone being in ON-mode, and interference with the three onboard GPS systems. The company verified several times, in multiple flights over different days, that the interference problem could be recreated reliably in the air by having the phone turned on. The interference disappeared when the phone was turned off or covered behind a metal object, and re-appeared when turned on or brought into the open again. In addition, the company conducted tests at two different places to ensure that it was not dependent on location, and were able to reproduce the interference effects at both.
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Measurements of spurious emissions from a mobile phone are conducted in a reverberation chamber for the Global Positioning System (GPS) radio frequency band. This phone model was previously determined to have caused interference to several aircraft GPS receivers. Interference path loss (IPL) factors are applied to the mission data, and the outcome compared against GPS receiver susceptibility. The resulting negative safety margins indicate there are risks to aircraft GPS systems. The maximum emission level from the
phone is also shown to be comparable with some laptop computers emissions, implying that laptop computers can provide similar risks to aircraft GPS receivers.