Mobile Apptitude

More and more these days, I hear grumbling every time I get on an airplane about the requirement that we all turn off our mobile devices — fully — for takeoff and landing. Does this policy, which seems to be shared by every major U.S. airline, have some basis in reason?

From everything I’ve been able to research…the answer is definitely YES.

Takeoffs and landings are the most critical time in any airplane’s flight (and unfortunately, when crashes are most likely to occur). Is this really the time to assume that your phone won’t interfere with a crucial sensor or navigation system? If there’s anything tricky about the landing, such as crosswinds, low light, fog or the need for an instrument approach…you probably shouldn’t make the pilots’ job any harder.

“But my phone emits such a weak signal and I’m in row 40, more than 100 feet away from the cockpit.”

Sure, just one phone might not be a problem…but if you’re allowed to use your phone, then everyone else will be too. Will 100 phones transmitting at the same time interfere with cockpit systems? Personally, I’d rather not be on the flight where we all find out.

“But my iPod doesn’t emit any signal at all. Why can’t I listen to music while we take off?”

Well, if you’re in the aisle seat and I’m in the window seat, I’d prefer that you be able to hear any and all emergency instructions from the flight attendants if we all need to get off this plane in a real big hurry. I hope that’s not too much to ask.

“The airlines are just doing this to make us use their outrageously expensive in-flight phones.”

Actually, not so much anymore. When’s the last time you actually saw one of those credit card phones on a plane? They’re generally being phased out, and you were never allowed to use them below 10,000 feet anyway.

And that’s not to mention that your cell phone just isn’t going to work very well up in the air anyway. Even if you can get a signal, the network will have a really hard time coping with your speed — both in hopping quickly from from tower to tower, as well as the fact that you’re doing 500 mph or so. Mobile phones weren’t designed to handle either condition

Which brings up another reason you should be sure to keep you phone (or at the very least its radio connections) OFF during flight…which is power management. If you’re up in the air and your phone is trying to find a tower to connect to, it will probably emit at full power (since the towers are several miles below you) and hop from tower to tower along the way — which will drain your battery pretty quickly and leave you with a dead phone on landing.

Apart from all the technical and safety reasons mentioned above….do you really want someone in the seat next to you yammering away on the phone for most of your flight? I know I wouldn’t (and I usually feel guilty when I make a short call as we pull up to the gate to let my loved ones know I’ve arrived safely.) Maybe that’s why a handful of Congressional representatives have introduced the “Halting Airplane Noise to Give Us Peace (HANG UP) Act” to ban all voice calls while in flight. Most airplane passengers, from the polls cited in that link, seem to agree with them.