Four Months in Jail for using a cell phone
 

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/2248683.stm

Talk about overkill

How so?

Our corporate pilots sometimes forget to turn off their phones. Every so often, you'll hear one ringing in the cockpit.

Sprint has asked them to turn them off, since it screws up roaming and billing. apparently, even if the phone is idle, the software keeps track of where the phone is at any given moment.

I don't really buy the "safety" argument, as no one has been able to prove the risks; but he did disobey instructions of the flight crew and break the law, regardless of the actual danger.

d

I have been on the NBA charter planes and the players use their phones whenever they feel like it. Sames goes for the corprate jets I have been on.

As a former Part135 pilot I can tell you the reasoning for the rule....

In the OLDEN DAYS - planes lacked significant EM shielding and one of those 3 watt cell phones could play havoc with navigational gear and actually destroy an old LORAN C

I have seen a pilot talking on his cell at 10k feet on a descent telling his wife to head twoards the airport.... ( wait did I just say that )

I'm not expert on this, but have read boards where the experts post...

My understanding is that cellphones can still cause interference with navigational systems and cockpit instruments. Not all phones, not all planes. But in the right random coincidence of circumstances, it can happen.

Obviously, if the pilot is on the phone and simultaneously gets weird cockpit info, s/he knows what's caused it. Similarly, on a small business charter, s/he can quickly establish whether the cockpit info is correct, or it's just a client on the phone.

In a 747, however, there's no way to quickly tell whether it's a real problem, or just cellphone interference from the hundreds of great unwashed outback. Hence no phones.

This is the only logical argument I, as a layman, have encountered on this issue. The only way round, apparently, is to upgrade all civil aircrafts systems to military standards. Obviously very expensive.

Personally, I quite like having one place in my life I can escape my phone! Email, however, is another matter...

The story is covered in today's Wired, along with a link to this article which gives a good overview of the failures of any scientific study to link cell phone use with communication interference.

Without the rule, how many cell phones would be in use during the last half hour of any given flight? People calling to say they are on time, 10 min late, 10 min early, meet you at baggage claim, see you outside baggage claim, etc, etc. Would this have any adverse effect on the communication between the airport and the pilot? Even if it does not, I can only imagine how annoying it would be.

Proof, no. Link, yes. Empirical evidence, yes.

See http://www.caa.govt.nz/fulltext/CAA_...1_3_MayJun.pdf for more details of incidents in which links have been evident.

One of the difficulties of research in this area is that many of the incidents come to light anecdotally and there seems to have been little systematic attempt to collate all the worldwide evidence.

I think that as far as flight safety is concerned, it's better to be safe than sorry. While there's a risk of aircraft going out of control because of an active cellphone, they should be turned off. What I wish is that airlines wouldn't hide behind the anodyne phrase "could affect the aircraft's navigational systems", and rather say "could cause the aircraft to go out of control".

So this guy's repeated defiance of crew warnings and instructions means he deserves what he got.

While I certainly agree that this guy deserves a serious penalty for repeatedly disobeying crew instructions, you can't just dismiss the concept of proof as a technicality.

The empirical evidence to which your link refers hardly constitutes anything remotely describable as evidence. The "most serious example" says that they "suspect" a passenger's cell phone rang.

I'm willing to bet there were also female passengers on board, should they be banned? Come to think of it, I think there have been female passengers in well over 99% of all airplane crashes! Proof? No, Link? Yes!
Let's start writing our congressmen to support all-boy flights!

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Homer: Thank You.
Lisa: According to your logic, I could say this rock keeps tigers away.
Homer: Hmmm. How does it work?
Lisa: I don't see any tigers around.
Homer: I see. Lisa, I want to buy your rock!

What about these two incidents in that article:- These are just two NZ cases, and it's clear from the quote that others are suspected. And look at the one UK case referred to:- I also remember a report of an SQ incident in which a pax using an Iridium phone during cruise caused the autopilot to trip out and the aircraft to depart from its intended flight path, although I can't now remember how serious that was.

These reports demonstrate that there is a fair amount of empirical evidence about this problem. Nobody knows exactly how widespread the problem is, nor how much safety is degraded when an incident like this occurs. Also, I think that newer designs are generally thought to be more resistant, which is good news. But you can see the potential for an incident to become a serious one.

If the crowd in first class on the Eurstar and Thalys (Paris-Brussels) trains are any indication, 90% of passengers would be on the phone, imparting such vital information as "we're just pulling into the station now; can you see the train yet?" Aargh.

Sometimes it can be amusing, though. I one heard a 50-ish guy first call his wife to say the train was running late (it wasn't) and then call his mistress to arrange a meeting place, telling her that he wouldn't have a lot of time.

Globaliser, you still aren't getting it. Take, the second situation, for example. They saw a problem and then investigated and found a passenger was on the phone. What about all the times they didn't see a problem and so didn't bother to look for a passenger on the phone? Also, don't you suppose the cockpit crew was trying 5 other things to fix the data problem, and don't you suppose it was more likely that one of those things fixed it rather than an FA wandering around and then walking all the way back to the cockpit and mentioning it?

In the first example, they don't report if it happened immediately or if they could repeat the exact same thing by calling the phone again.

There is a reason why proof is required, and that's because anecdotes lie. Ask anyone in tech support if observed correlations mean anything at all, and they'll laugh at you.

Dogs think that their barking drives away the mailman, even though he actually leaves because he's done dropping of the mail. At least the dogs have consistency on their side in that argument (i.e. the dog always barks and the mailman always leaves). You only have 3 examples out of thousands and thousands of flight hours going back at least 7 years, and they aren't reproducible.

Anecdotes are valuable in coming up with things to test out, but once they are tested out and fail, you have to accept that it is something else.

I can't find it off hand, but I remember hearing that Boeing did a test where they basically shot the aircraft with every possible type of cell phone interference and didn't find any problems.

d