As I stated earlier, I believe the burden of proof rests with those who want to change the status quo and leave electronics turned on. Where is your evidence that "the possibility of death or injury is so extraordinarily low"?

I will quote from the Spectrum article I referenced earlier:

Without any direct record of the RF environment in a plane at the time of its crash, it is difficult to see how one could definitively attribute a crash to PED interference after the fact. This holds true even if investigators were to look for PED interference as the primary cause of the accident, which, typically, they do not.

And repeat a quote I cited earlier, from the same source:

(S)purious emissions from cellular phones at the allowable FCC limits would cut dangerously into safety margins for avionics, even when considering "reasonable minimum" radio receiver interference thresholds. More troubling, the study found that intermodulation between some cellular phones caused emissions in the frequency bands used by an aircraft's GPS and distance-measuring equipment. The report identified other combinations of common passenger transmitters that could potentially produce intermodulation effects in aircraft communication and navigation RF bands.

A few facts:

• Commercial air travel is extraordinarily safe; the total risk of death or injury as an airline passenger is extraordinarily low.
• "PED interference" exists on almost all flights. People frequently forget or "forget" to turn of their cell phones, iPods, etc. (as stated in the IEEE Spectrum article).
• Most accidents are shown to have a cause other than "PED interference". From the article: "If PEDs had contributed to any accidents, they did not play a role in any more than about 6.5 percent of them."

If the possibility of death or injury due to someone's use of a PED was not extraordinarily low, then the risk of death or injury on a commercial flight would not be extraordinarily low (yet it is).

Yes, I am talking in orders of magnitude: e.g. I am considering 10 times "extraordinarily low" to still be "extraordinarily low".

In the end, the reality is that "PED interference" exists already, irrespective of any ban on PEDs. Airliners and avionics must be designed to operate safely in the presence "PED interference".

You could replace "PED interference" with lots of things and the statement would still hold true. Replace "PED interference" with "spoiled airport hotel meals eaten by the crew" and the statement would still make sense (except the record of the RF environment part).

I also get and read IEEE Spectrum, and recall being underwhelmed (to be generous) by that article.

On the contrary, these reports are often filed to shield the offending party from any sort of disciplinary action related to their errors, and is often the first thing that a union rep will tell the employee to do, file a NASA form so the big bad company can't discipline you for not doing the job right.

What "possibility"? So far 100's of millions of flights and NOT ONE SINGLE CONFIRMED CASE of injury, death or navigational error related to PED's over the last 30 years. What is left to "prove"? As has been noted by others, every flight already has PED's in the powered on and emitting mode during all phases of flight in all kinds of weather yet not one single negative impact has been confirmed to be related to that fact.

There is no more "proof" required. You folks all like to throw around death and injury as a reason for following this rule, but you have yet to offer one shred of evidence that proves your point.

I've always wondered about this. Currently with the rules to switch phones off, perhaps 30% of people leave them on (this is a figure plucked out of the air so it's unlikely to be correct). Is it possible that problems may arise when, rather than having 100 phones on during a flight, you have 300 phones on during a flight?

All it takes is one phone. That phone has a greater probability of appearing on an aircraft with 300 phones than an aircraft with 100 phones.

Realistically, we are talking about a low probability event. You could have 100,000 cell phones on the aircraft and the expected case is that nothing will be observed