<font face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" size="2">Originally posted by nerd:
The story is covered in today's Wired, along with a link to this article which gives a good overview of the failures of any scientific study to link cell phone use with communication interference.
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Proof, no. Link, yes. Empirical evidence, yes.
See
http://www.caa.govt.nz/fulltext/CAA_...1_3_MayJun.pdf for more details of incidents in which links have been evident.
One of the difficulties of research in this area is that many of the incidents come to light anecdotally and there seems to have been little systematic attempt to collate all the worldwide evidence.
I think that as far as flight safety is concerned, it's better to be safe than sorry. While there's a risk of aircraft going out of control because of an active cellphone, they should be turned off. What I wish is that airlines wouldn't hide behind the anodyne phrase "could affect the aircraft's navigational systems", and rather say "could cause the aircraft to go out of control".
So this guy's repeated defiance of crew warnings and instructions means he deserves what he got.