Originally Posted by bstndance
The idea of cell phones affecting the aircraft is kind of crazy anyway. An airplane flies through millions of communication signals (radio, cell phone etc) that don't seem to affect the airplane. I'm not a communications expect though so I could be wrong.
When piloting a plane, I've only experienced what I would call cellular phone interference in two ways:
1. The pilot gets the phone too close to the instrument panel, and some of the instruments give faulty readings. In a large aircraft, I've never seen this problem coming from a phone in a cabin.
2. As the plane descends, the phones acquiring the network do have some limited crossover with the aircraft's radios. You can hear the phone handshaking over the COM and NAV radios. Normally, IMO, this isn't a big problem, as the readings are okay, but I can tell you that when I've been concentrating on a difficult approach, the interference has startled me. I'm sure this wouldn't screw up a professional pilot, but why take chances -- if you're landing in crappy weather, make sure the phone's off.
