<font face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" size="2">Originally posted by MikeFly:
AA is my carrier of choice so I guess I am out of luck. Can't figure out why they would ban it as it is a totally passive device. Guess I'll send an e-mail to AA and see what the response is, as well as asking the pilot if I can turn it on anyway. My GPS is the Etrex which looks a lot like a cell phone so I can already see a pax telling me I can't have a phone on 
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The explanation also showed up on the GPS Bulletin Board. The reason for prohibition seems to come from an incident involving a Teen-age Boy with a GPS on a NYC to MIA flight. Seems the boy was tracking the flight and noticed that the plane had passed by MIA (normal flight pattern) and seemed to be heading straight toward Havana (before making the turn to come in from the West). He shouted out that the plane was being Hi-jacked to Cuba and caused some panic on the plane. (This was in 1998 or 1999) So the airline decided to ban them. But like I pointed out earlier, sometimes if you ask the Captain or FO nicely, they may allow the in-flight use. Never hurts to ask.