highlander88

The biggest joke is, say conservatively 2% of al passengers do not turn off their phones currently for take off and landing. Therefore there are daily thousands upon thousands of phones on, and many I'm sure not in airplane mode, and so far I don't believe there are any crashes attributable to said cell phones.

I think the reason do many people get annoyed at this rule and don't obey it because it seems so ridiculous and arbitrary. Everyone understands why you can't use the washroom 2 minutes before landing. But cell phones are a different matter

martin998877

I'm an engineer who does obey the rules on aircraft, however the rules are really inconsistent!

I can see that, potentially, a mobile phone left on would be transmitting at high power, trying to attain a signal. Probably that wouldn't cause any problems, but possibly it might. So I can see why they should be switched off.

But how do you define switched off? Many people have iphones or similar. My version of switiching it off is to to put it into flight mode - that shuts down all cellular, wifi, gps, etc, activity. But then it's annoying that that is accepted as ok - but using it to take a photograph through the window during the climb or descent isn't ok, the only difference being that the screen and camera are on. I've sat next to several people who, when asked to turn their phones off, push the off putton on the top - to them it 'looks off' but it isn't, they've just turned the screen off. Other people properly turn the phone off so it is totally shut down. Then turn it back on after the seat belt lights go off, without putting it into flight mode. There's no consistency at all, nor understanding by many gadget owners of how to even 'turn it off'!

My kindle really annoys me - it only has wifi, that is off when its in flight mode. But I am still not allowed to read it during taxi, climb and landing approach. And that is ridiculous. All it is is a simple digital book with little processing and no RF activity.

My noise cancelling earphones have more electronics in them, but they can be used during landing (even though I trhink that no headphones should be used during landing) and can be plugged into an ipod, but not into an iphone in flight safe mode!

My watch is digital and electronic. It has an altimeter and gps. But that doesn't have to be turned off for takeoff, and it is far more active than the kindle book reader is.

On a far eastern airline, on several internal flights, the FA turned off the individual overhead reading lights (the ones where each passenger has a switch for their own light) before landing, as "they are electronic and therefore can't be on during landing or takeoff"!

Some airlines state that phones can't be turned on after landing until passengers are in the terminal building. Others (EK) allow you to use them as soon as the aircraft turns off the runway. With EK they can also be used in flight, sometimes working via a mobile air cell signal, other times via wifi, sometimes not at all depending on the aircraft.

It really does need a review and a sensible consistent approach being devised. If it was up to me, I'd say that devices should be in flight mode after the doors are closed, but can be used at any time as long as they are in flight mode.

drphun

I will tell you a true story. When I was a young engineer just out of school I used to go on ships and test for EMI problems in equipment. This wasn't the testing manufacturers do, but just spot testing because some electronic equipment really did cause problems with other equipment. This testing wasn't that sophisticated - we used a portable radio (i.e. walkie talkie) and pushed the transmit button with the radio near equipment that was operating and looked for problems. Radio waves will induce a current in a wire - that's how an antenna works. On the bridges of the ships, they have this window with a round insert that spins to make it possible to see out the window when weather is bad by spinning rain and snow off the window. It is heated, too. One time when we were doing the tests, the radio interfered with the control for the heater for that window and caused it to heat up until it shattered. The radio waves emitted by a cellphone are not that much different in strength and frequency to a portable radio, and I see these same windows in the cockpits of commerical airliners - I wouldn't want the windshield on the plane to blow out in flight. It's probably not going to happen because the cellphones are further from the devices which reduces the risk of the EMI, however the avionics have many very small wires and a very small stray current in a semiconductor can cause big problems. Manufacturers test for all this, but that doesn't mean that the right frequency in the right place on the plane couldn't cause an unexpected problem. EMI is very hard to predict. With so many flights, even 1 problem in a million flights is still a lot of people at risk. Why was that Korean flight too low? EMI? We may never know, but it could have been.

WillCAD

Would that have been a 4-watt portable walkie? And you're comparing it to a .3-watt cell phone on an entirely different frequency band?

And yeah, radio waves induce electric current in wires. Unless they're shielded. You know, like those in a commercial airplane.

Also, I know I'm not as frequent a flier as many here on FT, but I have never seen an airplane window or windshield that spins to keep the rain and ice off.

Boraxo

I can generally receive emails and texts until the plane crosses a certain altitude, often for up to 10m after takeoff and 10m before landing (accidentally of course ). YMMV. After that time, you are correct - might as well save the battery by putting the phone into airplane mode.

Boraxo

Thanks for sharing, but this conclusion is absurd and not based on any facts that are currently published. At this point the only logical conclusion is that the crash was due to pilot(s) error, perhaps due to faulty training, cultural issues, or just general incompetence.

Bicostal

Actually, ahhh, no.

Sec. 121.306 — Portable electronic devices.

reamworks

On a flight from DUB to IAD, I reported, before take off, that the woman sitting next to me was acting very unusually and could they have the Authorities speak with her.

The FA thought I was joking, and proceeded to yell over to the woman next to me "This Man Says he doesn't want to sit next to you!" He thought we were husband and wife traveling together, and I was joking, as he explained later.

I won't/can't give all the details here, because I intend to take legal action. But it's nice to know they do have the power to have LE meet a pax upon landing. I wish they had done it to the woman who was seated next to me, because her actions should have been properly and officially memorialized. It shows even further negligence on United's part for not doing this in my case. If a pax reports unusual behavior, it needs to be taken 100% seriously.

jkhuggins

1. Acting in an unexpected manner should not be cause for suspicion.

2. If you're going to take legal action, then, with all due respect, please don't start a conversation on the topic here. It's annoying to only have half a conversation when the other party can't/won't fully participate.

zitsky

What should be the criteria for being given extra scrutiny? What behavior should be reported?

BThumme

IMO there shouldn't be. Let the TSA take care of that.

I shouldn't have to feel like I am on the watch for anyone and everyone in an area that has already had a screening.

greentips

You probably have a bad antenna feed or a ground loop in your avionics power feeds or a loose connector. I'd have the local avionics shop check this the next time you do your IFR and transponder certs. I have flown numerous aircraft over the years and have not seen this behavior at all, even in aircraft with radios that probably should have been retired decades earlier.

The simple fact is your aircraft has a variety of radios, all operating on different frequencies, and these radios to pass TSO muster must demonstrate out of band RFI rejection.

As for the GPS issue, GPS operates on 1500 MHz (+/-) frequencies at extremely low power. As was clearly demonstrated in the Lightsquared fiasco, a low power terestrial transmitter can disrupt GPS navigation for thousands of square miles. Lightsquared using political influence attempted to use the guard band adjacent to the GPS frequencies to put a ground based cellular network on the air. The testing done in central NM disrupted GPS signals as far north as northern Colorado, rendering GPS unusable. Fortunately, even presidential interference could not override the laws of radio physics and Lightsquared is now bankrupt. But the whole fiasco demonstrates just how easy it is to disrupt a GPS signal with a radio transmitter small enough to carry in your hand and run off a 9 volt battery. GPS is no panacea.

Your ILS/Localizer system is ground based and is capable of pushing watts through it to insure a strong steady and stable signal to the cockpit equipment. It is highly unlikely a phone sized transmitter with a phone sized battery can outgun an ILS/GS transmitter unless the cockpit equipment is defective or mis-installed. Cell phones are frequency restricted a long ways from the GPS band and for good reasons, but you do raise an interesting point. If someone did wish to sabotage an airliner using a GPS only approach, a modified cell phone device could accomplish this. But this would be detected because there are multiple redundancies in both the cockpit gps and other NAV instrumentation, ATC radar tracks and hopefully pilots doing their jobs.

That being said, ILS LOC/GS signals can be jammed, causing misleading cockpit indications, too, but again, that's why they put those extra navigation waypoints using different radio nav aids on the approach plates or the approach plates carry the legend RADAR OR DME REQ'D.

It's all about redundancy so we can safely decide to continue or terminate the approach if a radio in the airplane or on the ground or in the sky fails to give expected indications.

Agreed. And something a small disc capacitor could fix for about a penny a speaker.

greentips

Mine can. They meet FAA TSO standards for use in all phases of flight. But then, they are generally plugged into the cockpit radios when I'm using them. They also make great ear protection at the local shooting range, provided I keep the cords tucked away.