Originally Posted by
Joely
Landing into ICN this morning it was a bit foggy, not super foggy (I've landed in JFK in far worse) but foggy nonetheless. On approach the captain announced that they were going to be using auto-land and accordingly everyone had to turn off all electronic devices no matter the size. Of course I complied but it got me thinking about why such a request might be made? Do such devices really disrupt auto-landing systems substantially more the "normal" ones or is something along the lines of the mobile phone at the petrol station forecourt, i.e. no real evidence just a surfeit of caution?
There is interference, probably less than there used to be but it still exists. Modern aircraft are shielded but nothing is perfect. Using autoland is an expression used to a largely uneducated public, we can autoland on a sunny day. The issue is that when the pilots cannot see the runway then they have to rely on the system to work perfectly and there is almost no opportunity for them to correct a wayward landing.
Fog is also very misunderstood by the public, what seems to be not particularly bad at the surface may well be dreadful at 50 feet, or vice versa. also the pilots are looking down through the fog layers to try to see the runway, and this is not the same as looking horizontally over the land. There is so little margin for error and your perception of how bad the fog is, is not really relevant. So for safety reasons ( we take no chance) we ask, when we do an autoland in poor visibility for you to turn off your devices completely.
There are many who will tell you that this is not necessary, even give technical explanation as to why they think they are right. The CAA thinks differently to them, and really, why is it important to have your devices on at that time, are we as a society so obsessed that we might miss out that we cannot turn off our devices for 10 minutes?