thatsthebadger

Pal of mine who is a 777 pilot having flown 747s for years, said to me one time, turn your phone off if it's foggy and cloudy bad weather. He had no agenda and no reason to tell me an untruth. So I reckon I'll go with his advice over yours

Lynyrd

I wouldn't be bothered at what he was doing and would not tell the CC or BA.

Allan38103

You just did!

Takiteasy

No one wants to risk their safety - especially the crew, so I'm a firm believer that if they saw any risk they would intervene. Whether or not a phone has caused a crash or not to date, if they believe on this particular flight at this particular time there was a risk, they would have done something about it. As you're Lifetime gold twice over, you must have some trust in the BA crews otherwise you would have avoided the airline like the plague.

However what shocks me more in your story is that the crew did not at least pretend to care - for the sake of being polite and/or putting your mind at rest.

bhbloke

I hope you don't fly on a flight out of the UAE with mainly locals, they're all shouting into their phones well into the climb until the reception cuts off!

'andad

I meant report it to BA, not to you Allan.

HLCinCOU

Oh, my, he's a pilot!?!? Oh well then that settles it. He obviously knows all about this subject. Your appeal to authority was super effective, over 9000.

Oh wait, turns out your friend doesn't know what he's talking about.

A typical 777 carries ~350 people; a 747 over 400. Do you think since the advent of ubiquitous cell phones there was a single flight he ever took where nobody on the plane forgot to set a phone to airplane mode?

Can you list all the times a plane was compromised by a passenger's cell phone? I can: null set.

Can you cite the FAA regulation prohibiting cell phones on planes for safety reasons? No? Because there isn't one?

Can you explain why, if phones interfere with planes, pax are allowed to have the devices onboard at all, and why FAs are basically totally uninterested in whether they really get turned to airplane mode?

Can you even imagine the level of engineering malpractice it would require to build a passenger aircraft that is affected by errant RF signals in known licensed frequency bands?

Do planes lose avionics and navigation when they fly past radio and television towers?

This one's worth saying twice: can you name a single, sole, solitary instance of a plane ever having any problem whatsoever because of a cell phone not in airplane mode?

bafan

This.

HLCinCOU

For what it's worth, it hadn't occurred to me that the thrust of this concern might be the failure to pay attention to the briefing, rather than the electronics issue.

To the degree that's what the OP was worried about, OK, that's a lot more valid. Not the sort of thing I personally would worry about, but not crazy.

KARFA

http://www.ecfr.gov/cgi-bin/text-idx....1.1.2.8.27.12

Btw, have you written to the FAA to give them the benefit of your technical expertise?

smokie36

I long for the days of lemon shortbread and the cabin crew swearing at me for reading my kindle on approach.

Woe betide us!

scottishpoet

http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/ar...ectid=10701029

HLCinCOU

Oh, crap, you got me!

Wait, that's in Title 47, Telecommunications? And the chapter in question is titled Federal Communications Commission? Funny place for an FAA regulation...

Right. Exactly as I said before, the FCC prohibits phones on planes because of potential ground network interference. Which is pretty much moot with modern cellular networks. Good try though.

HIDDY

Rather harsh I think?
I've flown on several airlines where 'safety rules' have been overlooked by cabin crew. Glasses not being collected is very common on departure/landing and on one flight where crew luggage was placed on the floor of one of the empty F seats for landing which I imagine is not allowed.
Such things don't bother me to be honest as there's more chance of my health and safety being jeopardised by my wife's cooking.

Having said that if the OP is confident that cabin crew blatantly ignored his appeal for action to be taken against the Russian (if he was definitely breaking safety rules) then he should complain. It has obviously been of some concern to him.

Takiteasy

Cannot see any reason quoted by them when you are in the air.
The only reason I know that is enforced more strongly by the crew is in autoland mode. Someone on another thread explained why, with some diagrams etc.

Once again the thread is not about regulations and whether they should be followed or not, it's about the way the crew treated the OP.