I've accidentally left my phone on flying from the US to Asia and picked up cell service in half a dozen countries. When roaming you usually get a greeting SMS message from the new network informing you of charges and it was fun to look at all the places my phone got signal.
The need to turn off electronic devices is proven to be nonsense. But why keep it there? Maybe because it teaches us to be compliant while flying. Listen to instructions and do as you're told.
I'm not a fan of that. So I read my kindle after I've been told not to if I can get away with it. Or listen to music even when we're coming in to land.
If my e-reader ever causes us to crash, humans really should have built better planes.
I think its because that if there were an accident involving the spill of aviation fuel (even in an aborted takeoff situation, I can see that happening) then the danger of ignition would be that much greater if everyone's phones, tablets, laptops, etc were all in a powered-on or RF transmit mode.
It makes good sense to minimise that risk.
I recall years ago you were not permitted to use a cellphone on the forecourt of a gas station. No one seems to remember or bother about that now.
Not really. To the extent a risk exists, the only response that would make any sense whatsoever would be to redesign the fueling and/or avionics systems to make them compatible with common consumer electronics. The fact that this isn't happening suggests that the warnings are all just so much hot air.
No one seems to remember or bother about that now.
Perhaps because there isn't a single documented case of a fire or explosion at a gas station being caused by RF energy at levels around one watt.
FACT: the risk of my mobile phone igniting vapourised fuel in a gas station forecourt is almost exactly equivalent to the probability that my ipod nano will tangle with an airplane's cockpit electronics.
It's all myth and fud spread by a) people with ulterior motives (see above) b) people who are too uneducated or too stupid to make their own judgement. Like air hostesses, petrol attendants.
Inside your iPod nano, or any other device with a computer chip is a radio transmitter. Inside the cockpit are many radio receivers, some of which are pretty critical to the proper flight of the airplane. Your radio transmitter, and radio transmitters being run by other passengers, mix and mingle their signals, producing an unpredictable effect on these key cockpit receivers.
The probability that this happens is not zero or low, but very high.
1. Not all devices with a computer chip have radios, my TI-84 calculator has a Z-80 processor but there is no radio in it
2. Aircraft radios operate on a very different frequency then consumer electronics, and I'm pretty sure the FCC wouldn't allow consumer electronics to operate on the same frequency as the radios in a cockpit regardless
Technically, yes, there is a "radio" in your TI-84. The Z-80 is clocked by a crystal oscillator, which runs at a few MHz. Some of that energy will escape in the form of electromagnetic radiation. Sensitive instruments (including an ordinary AM radio) can pick up this radiation from distances ranging from a few inches to several yards. This is true of essentially all modern electronics, although the frequencies have obviously gone higher and higher over time.
If it were true that the RF energy levels emitted by FCC Part 15-covered consumer electronics could interfere with aircraft systems, it would be utterly unthinkable to permit them on board in the first place, whether "powered off" or not. The TSA would be confiscating Game Boys, not bottles of water. Since that isn't happening, it's difficult to avoid the conclusion that the prohibition is just one more exercise in bureaucratic security theatre.
If all electronic devices were dangerous, airlines would be asking passengers to remove the batteries from their wristwatches for the duration of the flight.
"I recall years ago you were not permitted to use a cellphone on the forecourt of a gas station. No one seems to remember or bother about that now."
Some woman started yelling at me in a gas station forecourt last year (2010) because I was talking on the phone while sitting in my car with the door open. "You're going to blow us all up!" she yelled at me (twice), then sped off far too quickly to have been a safe speed for leaving a gas station parking lot. :/
There is actually a very logical, sensible reason to have everyone power off and stow their devices during takeoff and landing, and this story disappointingly failed to cover it:
By far the most likely time for any accidents or incidents to occur is during takeoffs and landings. If everyone has 15 objects out and is busily typing away, it's going to be tht much more difficult for flight attendants to get everyone's attention to give instructions, and crucially, much much more difficult to evacuate the plane as quickly as possible.
This isn't controversial, complex or even hard to figure out. It's the same reason they aren't serving food and drinks at those times, and the same reason you have to stow your carry-ons and put your tray tables up at these times.
Disappointing that the Times did not bother to learn this or to write a more informative story.
While this explains why you must stow the devices, it doesn't explain why you have to power them off, why it's often OK to hold a device that's turned off, and why nobody ever tells you to put down a book or magazine during these times.
As the author of the piece, I have to disagree with you. First, the F.A.A. never used this as a reason when I spoke with them for my story. Second, if that were the case, then why are people allowed to read books, magazines, and play crossword puzzles on paper? Reading a book on a Kindle will not cause more distraction during an emergency than reading one on paper. Thanks, Nick Bilton.
Regardless of what the FAA says, my reason is still valid. It is also not really in conflict with what you're saying...you're right that it's not really consistent since folks are still allowed to read books, but that doesn't invalidate my point either.
I would point out that people are not really as likely to take a crossword with them in an emergency as they would be a computer.
Also, you're frankly wrong in asserting that electronic devices are not more distracting than a paper book; think of anything involving headphones, for instance.
If people are desperate to hold onto their laptop in an emergency, it's not going to matter if it's on their lap or in the bins above their head: they're going to try to get it.
There are a reasonable set of restrictions for safety (i.e. headphones). There are others that are not. For a point of reference, JetBlue provides satellite radio and TV both in-flight and during landing (as well as sometimes during take-off). They've clearly chosen to prioritize passenger comfort in lieu of relaxed FAA regulations, and aren't concerned about the impact of distractions.
When I looked into the topic years ago, ISTR finding a few FAA incident reports that did involve consumer electronics causing harmful interference with cockpit navigation systems. They didn't result in accidents but seemed well documented.
I'd be very interested in that data, mostly because a handheld device capable of producing enough EM radiation to interfere with a cockpit from dozens of feet away (at a minimum) through metal bulkheads seems implausible, at the least. Remember that EM fields are subject to inverse-square law.
If it was possible, I can't imagine that the TSA would let us carry as much as a 9-volt battery on board. Even if it were possible, couldn't you just put shielding between the passenger cabin and the cockpit? EM radiation is line-of-sight, after all.
It seems like a giant non-issue that exists mostly due to rulemakers' ignorance.
If it were trivially possible for you to interfere with cockpit computers, why wouldn't terrorists be going after that? Seems like a massive, massive oversight if that were the case.
It's not an effective way to bring down a plane. The pilot would just switch to another instrument or frequency. You could land the plane without any radios or navigation. But it would raise some pulses.
In visual conditions it would be a total non-issue - GPS/VOR/IRS guidance to the airport (or radar vectors or pilotage), with a visual landing.
For an ILS approach to minimums in hard instrument conditions, it could be problematic - especially if you are off course and don't realize it. There are minimum safe altitudes on approach plates that could be violated if you are way off course (putting you into a TV tower, for example).
I'm not an airline pilot but I am pilot. I'm not aware of anything better than ILS for those types of conditions (very low ceilings and visibility). VOR/NDB approaches are non-precision approaches. The GPS I have access to does not permit a precision approach - maybe the airliners have something better.
You think it would be a problem if the ILS was sketchy in Cat 3 auto-land with ceiling/visibility at minimums ?
But the checklist should check that the ILS is alive... and if it's centered horizontally and vertically the pilots should notice.
OTOH a crafty terrorist could wait for a bad weather day, unplug the airport ILS, and set up an alternate one in a nearby building. Still, the tower would probably notice something was amiss and just say 'go around'.
I have heard that the airliners are generally all equipped with GPS units rated for precision approaches. I'd have to look at some approach plates to see how the mins for GPS approaches stack up to the ILS approaches for the same runways (I don't fly anything rated to use GPS for precision approaches).
Don't forget PAR, which generally has mins comperable to, if not lower than, ILS.
There are three cases that I know of, they were in an NTSB report which is not online sadly. They all involved interference with the ADF [1] and frequencies used in ILS [2]. Basically the local transmitters around airports are relatively low power so as to not interfere and they only need to 'talk' to planes that are landing, the ILS frequencies are in the 108 - 115Mhz range (just above the FM band). For a fairly long time the memory speed on PC based laptops was about 133Mhz and that was synthetically generated by clock chip running at 50 - 60Mhz on the motherboard. Sidebands from these machines, as weak as they were, were closer to the plane's reciever and so the ILS system would be unable to 'lock in' (the ILS receiver uses a phase locked loop to maintain tracking on the signal).
Anywhoo, different airports, different frequencies, and differernt ways they might interfere. Since that time laptops have gotten better (and faster, they are all generally over a gigahertz on their various busses), and radios have gotten better too.
A AT&T friend actually mentioned that AT&T had asked the airlines to ban cellphone use (back in the 900Mhz analog days) because the towers couldn't deal with a cell phone that went by a 500 MPH. However I've never been able to confirm that with any public record so I consider it hearsay at best.
In the old days of analog cell phones, a single cell phone would talk to all the towers in range and hog bandwidth on every one. On the ground not many towers were in range, once you got to 20,000 feet, there were a lot. If cell phones were on on all the planes over LA, it would be like a DDOS attack.
Possibly still an issue with digital phones, but they can do a lot of smart things, modulate power, drop calls to not overload the network LOL.
> Remember that EM fields are subject to inverse-square law.
Not inside a metal tube, they're not.
This is not to say that I'm a "believer" one way or the other, but you should also think about it in comparison to the signals that the navigation equipment is trying to receive with its omnidirectional antenna. I.e., a strong CB radio 26,000 miles away. It wouldn't take any power at all to interfere with it, if the interfering signal were on the magic frequencies (which are continually changing due to doppler effects).
"which are continually changing due to doppler effects"
Doppler effects will be extremely small, since the greatest speed differential you'll see will be twice the speed of an airplane (when two planes are moving directly towards or away each other), which is not a substantial fraction of the speed of light. There will be some shift, but not nearly enough to bump a device from non-interference to interference. Or did I misunderstand something?
I once was talking to a pilot who swore first-hand that he had the plane doing odd things, asked the attendants to go through the cabin looking for people using devices and to shut them off. They closed down one particular laptop and the plane started behaving again.
Whether this is 'friend of a friend' type tale that pilots like to say (and co-opt as their own story) or not is difficult to say.
The same pilot also told me the main reason they don't want you using cellphones on a flight was because the base stations couldn't triangulate properly and identify who was making the call - which is clearly BS. Same pilot also freely admitted to using his own phone during flights.
I guess my point is that the pilots at the same time kind-of believe the official excuses, yet at the same time flout them and make up ridiculous reasons why they are official.
there was a mythbusters on this. if i recall correctly, though they couldn't find any way to make the plane's instrumentation fail by bombarding it with a myriad of frequencies, even the mythbusters guys (possibly for legal reasons, or because they succumbed to pressure from their network) concluded that because the FAA can't rigorously test every device that comes out, that this is somewhat of a blanket policy to ensure that some new device that nobody has tested will be on during takeoff and cause the plane to crash.
this said, i never power off my devices...just put them in airplane mode if they have them, or to sleep. i fly a lot, both domestically and internationally.
If you broadcast on the radio frequency the pilot is speaking on, you can jam their transmission.
If you broadcast on, say, the instrument landing frequency (ILS) frequency, the ILS needle the pilot is looking at will stay centered, no matter how much he deviates from the approach path.
The pilot would undoubtedly realize something was amiss, switch comm frequencies, use GPS etc. But it could cause some distraction and wreak some havoc.
Back in the 90s, there were cheap CD players and whatnot that would generate all kinds of crazy RF.
The FAA said, this is all unapproved electronics, we can't test it, it has to go off during takeoff and landing, unless the pilot OKs it. Of course, the corporate pilot will OK it for his CEO/passenger.
I don't find this plausible. Is there any evidence to suggest that, during an emergency condition requiring cooperation, people continue to text and make calls? To quote Mitch Hedberg, "If you're flammable and have legs, you're never blocking a fire exit."
Your response is an example of the natural tendency of some people to find comfort in authority, even when it is shown to be ineffective. Nothing personal. Lots of people react in the same way. Sad nonetheless.
Not really. It is an example of me reading an Ask The Pilot column, on Salon, in which this topic was discussed, and finding myself in agreement with the reasonable points made therein, by an actual pilot.
As far as authority goes in general, and the FAA in particular, I think the FAA and Homeland Security are utterly full of it, most of the time. This issue is more evidence of that; I agree with those who point out that there is no reason to power off devices. Just pointing out that there is indeed a valid reason to want folks to put them away. Especially anything involving headphones.
This is a fairly hot topic among most frequent fliers. Did you ever consider that column was more propaganda warfare from the FAA instead of actual data?
I'm pretty sure about that, given that the same author has been quite harsh on the FAA about other issues (such as crew rest time). Edit: http://www.salon.com/2008/01/04/askthepilot259/ - hardly what I would call propaganda.
The FAA/TSA alway justify things in terms of "safety" and "security", but never calculate the massive costs associated with seizing billions in toiletries and productivity.
Let's calculate that. There are about 800 million[0] passengers on domestic and foreign owned airlines in the US market, with many people flying more than once per year.
Each person is taxed between 1-2 hours in terms of "safety" regulations, ranging from backscatter scans to nail clipper seizures to water bottle appropriations. Once on the plane, they are again taxed by about 15-30 minutes on each end from the ban on use of laptops, including the emergency landing song-and-dance that the vast majority[1] of passengers have already seen.
So let's say conservatively about 2 hours in total. So 1.6 billion hours per year. At a conservative estimate of $10 per hour, that's $16 billion per year. This does not include the $8.1 billion wasted on the TSA itself.
[1] In the unusual circumstance that a first time flyer is on board, a video could instead be played during check-in online, in the lounge, or on the seat back rather than slowing everyone down to look at the flight attendant. Would not be surprised if the percentage of first-time flyers on US domestic flights is less than 5%.
All you do your entire life is what you're confined to doing on an iPad in an airplane? It's not that huge of a loss. You're not dead for half an hour on each flight.
Nonetheless, flying could be an amazing experience. But fliers are some of the least happy people because they are treated either like criminas, children, or cattle. If the time isn't quite stolen, it is at least spoiled.
All I can say is to watch Louis CK's rant about how everything is amazing and nobody's happy. I fly several times a year and I honestly enjoy it. People who complain about their flying experience need thicker skin and more problems in their lives.
If 1 billion people take a 20 minute nap every day... that's equal to 38,000 years wasted time every day... which is about 20 lifetimes every HOUR! OMFG nobody should nap!
I don't understand how planes are seizing productivity when the nearest competitor -- an illegally driven car -- is about 5 times slower. Yes they have quite a bit of overhead during take off, landing, baggage claim, driving to the airport, security screening, etc. But what else can reduce a trip's time from days to hours? The amount of time wasted in that overhead compared to the time gained is minuscule.
Unless you are going a long way, it may well be faster to drive. For me: 1 hour drive to the airport, 1+ hours at the airport for check-in, security, etc, 1 hour at destination to retrieve baggage, get a rental car, and get out of the airport... plus the time of the flight. If I can drive in under 6 hours, I'll seriously consider doing that rather than deal with all the hassle of air travel.
That's exactly how I view, although I put a pretty heavy negative weight on the hassles of navigating around airports, finding parking, gates, etc. With driving I feel a lot more in control. Driving is also a continuous activity, there's minimal transition times (e.g. With flying you've got find a place to park, find your gate, etc).
Except that if you drive for 6 hours, you can't talk on the phone and you can't use your laptop. Your point doesn't make sense to me: if you're willing to drive for 6 hours, you're also willing to stop working during all that time, while if you flight you'll always find some time to work, at the terminal or in the plane.
If driving you can talk on the phone for the whole 6 hours. I did something similar at least once.
Also, the driver can't use a laptop, but because of the driving activity itself, the driver is not so easily bored. Boredom is the main reason why I power on my laptop on a plane. Also, the other passengers can easily work on a laptop, watch a movie and so on. If you've got a 3G connection, the passengers can also go online - even I as the driven, I often find myself checking my emails while driving, plus I'm connected on Skype for the whole ride. The only problem here may be the comfort of your car, as you'll have problems having a laptop in your lap if the car is a small one. I also never get anything done on a plane when trying to work, especially because I don't have Internet connectivity, so I would rather listen to Podcasts or read a book and when driving Audio books are great btw.
So, related to comfort, I always prefer a couple of hours in my 10-year old Audi A6 over a plane ride. If the car ride is longer than some threshold, like the mentioned 6 hours, I do agree that a plane ride is better.
In other parts of the world their are trains, which are faster than cars and provide tables and often electricity and wifi, making them a pretty compelling substitute.
There's a lot of empty space in between the West and the East, which is where plane travel is the most compelling, and train travel would still likely not be.
Thanks a lot for this, it's a really cool map. Note that this is just the US numbered routes, so it's pre-Interstate.
I'm quite fascinated by the interstate system; I think it's one of the more amazing things this country's managed to accomplish in the last century. I admit that I draw my sample set from just my experience -- I grew up in the SF Bay Area, go to school near Chicago, and spend summers in Seattle, so all my travel is huge E-W distances -- but I think even if you're right, you have a good argument for N-S rail systems and there's still enough E-W travel that air travel is still quite necessary.
No but for replacing quick hops trains make a whole lot of sense. Drastically less messing around at each end and train stations are often right in the centre of the city. Add to that the increased comfort a train provides and it is an easy argument to make.
I live in Washington, DC and Washington, DC -> NYC is a common trip. The train is a much better way to go. From Washington, DC, it's a short metro ride to get to union station. The train takes about 3 hours to NYC but it gets you right into Penn Station. This is much better than having to go to a suburb to get to the airport and landing in another suburb and having to get downtown. I'm a fan of trains. And... rail travel isn't dead time at all. I'm able to work on my laptop and I don't have to worry about the person in front of me putting their chair back full tilt crushing my opened screen.
The competitor is planes without the TSA, not cars.
By your reasoning, it would be wrong to complain about cars which have a speed limit of 40 miles an hour, since "the nearest competitor" (bikes, horses?) would still be still worse.
That's a great way to look at it. Safety has costs associated with it. So there may be some benefit to all these precautions, but if the probability adjusted benefit doesn't outweigh the costs then it's inadvisable to continue incurring the costs.
How many airports make you spend an hour or two going through security? When flying, I usually spend an hour or two in total at the airport, but that includes check-in, security, waiting for and boarding plane, then de-planing and sometimes waiting for luggage. Not to mention the transport time to and from the airports. Security and safety is a pretty insignificant part of that time, and waiting in line at the airport the price you pay for getting cheap airfares.
You can buy yourself out of this miserable experience by renting a plane. Of course, you might still get a security briefing by the pilot, as part of a checklist that he's already gone through hundreds of times while wasting precious time.
- you are a foreigner (that is: Everything but a citizen)
Everybody around me (including the airport) tells me to arrive ~2.5 (some say 2. Some 3) hours early. The procedure consists of
1. waiting in line forever, waiting for the luggage to be scanned
2. a passport check in that line, asking you questions about where you're from, where you stayed, what you did in Israel and if you happen to carry weapons or presents that might be bombs. If they are inclined to waste some time they are going to ask you for more: Do you know people in Israel? What are their names? Where do _those_ live? What's your connection ... it's something between a 3-4 questions interview and a nice interrogation
3. Your luggage was scanned. Someone is going to tell you to go to that place over there and unpack it. If it's your birthday or Fortuna is with you: Go to step 5.
4. Some guy/girl is ripping apart your luggage. Some are gentler, some really completely mess everything up.
5. The ticket counter! Get your ticket..
6. Wait in line before the security check of you and your carry-on stuff, metal detector, shoe removal station. If you don't have a laptop with you, go to 8
7. Your laptop is suspicious. You have to wake it up from suspend. Close it again. They x-ray it three times. They need to take it to another room, for a special treatment. After 30min they return, the laptop is not suspended anymore. It's off. You are supposed to prove (again) that it's a laptop and not a weapon of mass destruction. Powering it on, booting, logging in is not enough. 'Open a file!'. If you open a picture or a random text file in Notepad, you're good to go.
8. Proceed to the gate, please. You are late for your flight. Remember that for next time and get to the airport earlier, stupid.
Yes, it's that bad. Nothing is invented here, all experienced by yours truely. Not all steps are that bad all the time, but .. I wouldn't bet my ticket on having a lucky day..
Hmm.. Hope you didn't take offense with what I wrote. I see no personal insult anywhere in that text and certainly didn't intend any. That said:
- I had to remove my shoes at the Ben Gurion airport. Granted, only once so far
- Agreed (scanner)
- Braindead liquid rules still apply (maybe softened vs. the US? I cannot judge that)
And while Israelis have to do the same thing: If I travel with a coworker (we usually arrive separately) they pass all tests right away and have a couple of shortcuts (especially concerning passport control, inbound, for example). My experience with tourists, visitors and my own trips says that - well - foreigners start on the 'Might be a terrorist' scale at 3 out of 10, just because.
>- Braindead liquid rules still apply (maybe softened vs. the US? I cannot judge that)
I guess that it might apply more then usually when you fly to US. Flies to Europe/within Israel ok. You can buy whatever you want after security check and bring it with you.
Passport control shortcut, you probably mean electronic system. There is one like this in US for US citizens that I can't use :(
And yes, foreigners start with "Might be..." but usually it never goes beyond questions. "Luggage scan pass" Israeli might get only if they (scanners) are too loaded. In case line is short everybody goes through it. And Israelis can move to "might be" quickly in case they give "bad" answer. I once couldn't answer how old I am (I never know) and was questioned for 40minutes.
When I fly (as infrequently as possible), I have to budget at least 5.5 hours from my front door to boarding the plane. Here's my time budget based on 10 years of flying out of New York City from Newark (and occasionally JFK)
|-----------+----------------------------|
| Time (hr) | Activity |
|-----------+----------------------------|
| 1 | Drive to airport |
| 0.5 | Find parking |
| 0.5 | Shuttle to Terminal |
|-----------+----------------------------|
| 2 | ** Sub total ** |
|-----------+----------------------------|
| 1 | Check luggage |
| 1.5 | Security |
| 0.5 | To gate |
| 0.5 | Wait at Gate |
|-----------+----------------------------|
| 3.5 | ** Sub total ** |
|-----------+----------------------------|
| 5.5 | ** Total ** |
|-----------+----------------------------|
Hmm. Strange to get downvoted for this. What about my post made you think it was unworthy or inappropriate to the discussion?
I agree that security these days is by far overkill, and even agree with many of the deadweight statistics in this thread. But 5.5 hours is highly abnormal. I fly fast, I generally leave my house about an hour before my flight. I'm lucky enough to be a short 10 minute drive from my airport. Security usually takes me around 5-10 minutes at SJC, and 10-15 minutes at SFO. I can fit two weeks of clothing (fresh shirts for every day, two pairs of jeans, fresh underwear and socks for every day, a jacket and a blazer) as well as all my office supplies and toiletries into carryon baggage, so I never check bags. All in all it's usually 45 minutes from my front door til I step on the plane. It's not hard to make flying fast, it just takes dexterity with the security. The TSA themselves recommend showing up 90 minutes to 2 hours before your flight, but it's very doable to show up 30 minutes prior. I fly about once a month for business, and I've yet to miss a flight.
We just call a car service since we're close to a couple of airports; while proximity and being dropped at the terminal save time, even if all goes well we're still talking at least two hours.
I didn't down vote you, but I fly out of JFK too. For an international flight, I hop in a black car from manhattan 3 hours before the flight. For a domestic, I leave my apartment 2.5 hrs before the flight. Others may have downvoted because they thought you were exaggerating.
I guess I've been lucky with airports. What do you do for 1,5 hours in security? Standing in line, or is it the security check that takes so much time?
Delta actually does the seat back (or on the overhead monitors depending on the age of the plane) thing during taxiing to the runway.
You can actually go watch it at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MgpzUo_kbFY
The camera angles and lighting are a bit surreal when watching it after having been up for 96 hours though.
There's also the safety issue of the items not being stowed which are then made projectiles when a takeoff is aborted or the runway is overshot on landing. I don't want my Kindle embedded in someone's head because I had it out during landing.
(It's probably really hard to get the blood off the screen)
> If everyone has 15 objects out and is busily typing away, it's going to be tht much more difficult for flight attendants to get everyone's attention to give instructions, and crucially, much much more difficult to evacuate the plane as quickly as possible.
I'd imagine the screaming, flailing, flickering lights, smoke, and vibrations would do a decent job of getting people to look up from their iPhones.
> It's the same reason they aren't serving food and drinks at those times, and the same reason you have to stow your carry-ons and put your tray tables up at these times.
None of those restrictions are in place to make you listen to the attendants. They are in place because takeoff/landing is generally the part of the flight that is bumpiest and with the most maneuvering. Flight attendants (legitimately) don't want to clean soda off the ceiling or get hit by a suitcase.
> I'd imagine the screaming, flailing, flickering lights, smoke, and vibrations would do a decent job of getting people to look up from their iPhones.
That's not the point. The fact that people have items out (and are possibly blocking exit rows etc), and are not fully aware of the events leading up to the situation is likely to have some impact on the eventual outcome.
> None of those restrictions are in place to make you listen to the attendants. They are in place because takeoff/landing is generally the part of the flight that is bumpiest and with the most maneuvering. Flight attendants (legitimately) don't want to clean soda off the ceiling or get hit by a suitcase.
This is a side benefit for flight attendants and other passengers. Having people and carts moving in the cabin at these times, and in the event of a situation on board makes for a much worse situation than would otherwise be the case. The additional blockages of exit rows, and obstacle of tables being down creates additional confusion. In addition having tables down will result in injuries to seated passengers who are slammed into them.
No, I think it's EXACTLY the point. Events leading up to the "situation" are likely to grab attention no matter WHAT device you are or are not using. Engines falling off planes and such are VERY hard to miss.
And devices really don't affect people blocking exit rows, etc.
No, but a device dropped on the floor during an evacuation could mean some steps on it an slips. With a human pileup as a result, when seconds matter to save lives. That said, maybe the should ban magazines and books too then.
Lean back for ten minutes and think deep and meaningful thoughts. :)
> That's not the point. The fact that people have items out (and are possibly blocking exit rows etc), and are not fully aware of the events leading up to the situation is likely to have some impact on the eventual outcome.
Books and magazines present the same problems as a Kindle. So does a sleeping passenger. Safety should be taken as seriously as possible, but the inconsistent application of the rules only implies that no one has put any real thought into it thus far.
On the other hand, I believe Emerson said something pithy about consistently minding your hobgoblins (or something like that). Or, as hackers are more likely to put it: "The 90% solution is usually your best bet."
That said, if you you really do want to have them take away books and magazines and force everyone to stay awake during takeoff and landing, feel free to write a letter to the FAA.
If the elimination of risk were really the objective, they'd require passengers to travel in paper gowns with no carry-ons or luggage. But the fact of the matter is that they make the rules they think they can get away with, not the rules that will increase safety. And one way or another, I think it's vanishingly unlikely that anyone's life is going to be in danger from ten people playing game boys immediately prior to an air emergency.
Sorry, but this is bullshit. What makes electronic distractions worse than non-electronic ones? Why does the medium of a dead tree versus an e-reader when the activity is the same: reading a book.
If people think the plane's going to crash you will have their undivided attention
Then why can you read a book, magazine, feed a baby, etc.? Honestly, I feel like everyone keeps backing into these ridiculously vague "well... safety" answers with no justification. The FAA clearly told the reporter HOW the rule came to be, through a hypothetical concern that was not supported by evidence. Just like this one.
I can still have 15 objects out. 10 books, eye mask for sleeping, my neck pillow, a sandwich, pen and pad of paper, candy. I can be just as distracted with those as with a kindle. So that logic doesn't hold.
I often fly between two cities here in Norway, and the flight time is just 30 minutes (it takes 5 hours by train, btw). One airline insists on serving coffee to everyone, and the since the coffee is blistering hot, some people usually still have a hot cup of coffee in their hands while landing.
Even though you've stated this in a very confident tone and have a lot of upvotes, I don't really see any evidence for your claim. Stowing carry-ons/no drink service during takeoff could as easily be explained by not wanting projectiles flying about the cabin when the plane bounces, the challenge of keeping your feet while the direction of gravity is shifting around you, etc. None of these reasons apply to electronic devices.
And there are plenty of things you could do that would alleviate problems during exiting the plane that have higher marginal value and lower marginal cost than prohibiting electronic devices. For example, you could mandate that close-toed shoes be worn, blankets not be utilized, food not be eaten, and probably a number of other things that I'm not mentioning. It seems likely that your reason is not even close to the actual reason for this policy.
That may be a good reason to tell passengers to avoid using a laptop, for example. But a kindle? What's the difference between reading a kindle and reading a paper book in terms of "emergency preparedness"? Absolutely nothing.
Also, you're just inventing reasons out of thin air. This is not the reason why the FAA has such restrictions. The reason is that it is very difficult to test a plane as being immune to interference from every single possible handheld consumer electronic device, and it would be too complicated to enforce a selective ban.
> it's going to be tht much more difficult for flight attendants to get everyone's attention to give instructions
I've taken the plane more than a hundred times, I know the instructions and I know no one has ever bothered me when I leave my ipod/phone/nintendo ds turned on. Sometimes the flight attendance asked me to turn it off so I comply, otherwise I don't. Also especially because I like to listen to music when I take off and feel like I'm in a movie.
In addition, keeping passengers calm and relaxed is also a key point of security - roudy/drunk/agressive or even violent passengers can cause a lot of trouble on a flight when there are relatively few, fairly untrained flight attendants on board. Thus, if everybody was chatting away on their phones with annoying ring-tones going off every 2 minutes this would probably start aggravating people, so its just easier to say 'no mobile phones' - and if people have the impression it is a point of safety then they are more likely to obey them.
You have a good point. However, knowing that electronic devices cannot be used, many fliers (including myself) bring their own alternative such as magazines, books, etc.
I have never seen a stewardess calling somebody's attention for reading a book. On the other hand, they'll quickly force you to stop using almost anything that has an on/off switch.
Okay, so I have to put it away - your argument is logical and compelling. But why do I have to turn it off?
(And tangentially can anyone tell me what the safety grounds are for opening the window blinds? (Or is it just to make the turnaround quicker by not requiring cabin staff / cleaning crews to do it before the next flight boards?))
I think it's disappointing that we react to weird rules by inventing reasons to defend them.
You come up with a rationale for a set of rules and believe it to be true. I'd argue that this is a circular reference. Natural maybe, to try to rationalize things. But still, please consider that you just try to justify things that have been like that for a long time without a canonical explanation.
In the event of an emergency, that laptop or iPad is likely to stop being a productivity tool and start being a projectile. Just like the carry-on bags they also require you to stow.
I wish that the FAA would admit that this is the reason, if it is true. It certainly makes sense.
Personally, I don't mind the switch-off since it keeps obnoxious people from yakking on their phones (now, if only the airlines would offer infant-free flights...).
MythBusters covered this awhile back, and busted the myth: "The final explanation is that, even though the airplanes appear to be well-shielded against cellphone interference, there are so many different electronics in a cockpit, as well as so many different cellphones constantly coming out, the FAA doesn't want to do the necessary testing."[1]
If they actually aren't willing to test whether cell phones interfere with their equipment, they shouldn't be allowing cell phones on the plane at all. Relying on people's compliance (or even just their attention) to ensure the plane doesn't explode is absurd.
There are other options than "allow free cell phone use" and "frisk all passengers to ensure they're not smuggling in an active cell phone". Asking passengers not to use them is a decent compromise between safety and inconvenience. Naturally, if a crash were to actually occur due to mobile phone use, the FAA would need to revisit this guideline.
Note that GSM phones in particular _do_ interfere with radio systems - that irritating buzz you hear when a GSM phone is near a speaker amplifier can affect airplane systems as well (although it depends on where the phone is on the plane, of course). There can also be interference with _ground_ systems - cell networks aren't designed to deal with the rapid tower transfers caused by ultra-high-altitude phones moving at Mach 0.85.
> cell networks aren't designed to deal with the rapid
> tower transfers
I always see this argument brought up (on HN), but what does the FAA care about cell carriers' networks? Why don't they ever use this justification when asked to justify their policy?
They don't use this justification exactly because they mostly don't care about that. It's interesting that there probably is no regulation that forbids usage of cell phones at high speeds and high altitudes (as opposed to "on board of a plane"). At least ETSI specifications seems to imply that it's perfectly legal to operate whole GSM network on board of plane, while hinting at fact that direct communication with basestation on ground from plane is not intended mode of operation and probably will not work. On the other hand there seems to be an large amount of anecdotal evidence, that it really does work, although with marginal call quality.
So conclusion might be something along the lines of "it's not designed to do that", which seems like pretty good justification when you are talking about airplane safety.
> So conclusion might be something along the lines of
> "it's not designed to do that", which seems like
> pretty good justification when you are talking about
> airplane safety.
I'm not sure the reasoning follows:
1. "it's not designed to do that" refers to cell-to-ground communication, nothing to do with the safety of the plane.
2. cell-to-ground communications issues only apply to cellphones, but the FAA policy applies to all electronics.
I intended the second paragraph as my though on why telecommunications related organizations don't exactly discuss whether cellphones works on board of a plane and this intention was then probably lost by inserting that paragraph break :)
FAA's and related regulations are probably motivated by fact that it's essentially impossible to test that aircraft's systems work as intended even in presence of random consumer devices on board. EMC issues can be caused by almost any electronic device not only devices containing radio transmitters (eg. EU regulations require EMC certification for anything that, possibly internally, produces or uses signals >=1kHz).
That characteristic GSM interference is actually quite harmless to most well designed systems. In some sense, the GSM buzz is more caused by bad design of the audio amplifier than anything else. Also it's mostly caused by nearfield magnetic effects in contrast to RF emissions. I think it's safe to say that this is completely irrelevant to most avionics systems (but nobody is going to guarantee that).
Have you ever had your phone switched on while on a plane? I have, more than once. Above about 8,000 feet it tends to be almost impossible to get a signal anyway.
Most cell towers have a lot of RF engineering put into them to direct the signals DOWN, not UP.
For cellphones, there have been many reported incidents of interference when pilots had them on (search Google). I'd assume testing on cell phones would officially commence with installs of pico cells on US airliners.
I thought preventing unwanted interference between devices was what FCC rules were for. Couldn't they design aircraft equipment to tolerate radio waves from devices meeting certain FCC standards?
I've heard the level of cut-throat competition between airlines causes prices to be so low that it stunts the development of the industry. They are barely scraping by. Seems like a terrible business to be in.
Standards for airborne electronics are actually even more stringent - FCC rules say in essence that your device may not produce interference and don't exactly care about whether you device works when exposed to interference. This is not exactly what you want in safety critical system. On the other hand, it's not about designing interference resilient system, but about testing that such system really works as intended, which would probably involve impractical number of tested combinations of devices (ie. consumer phones and whatever else). It's mostly about manufacturer's liability than anything else - it's cheaper to say "not supported and not tested".
Wait, what? Don't all radio devices always get tested by the FCC before they are approved for sale?
I'm sure they could test airplanes to never be influenced by, say, a sub 2 Watt signal and certify cellphones of never exceeding 2 Watts of signal power.
Put your cellphone near your FM radio. Listen in amazement as the digital chatter between your phone and some remote tower causes interference in your radio reception and affects your listening pleasure. Now imagine that same thing happening to the digital signals in the airplane's electronics while attempting to operate the craft. Catastrophe, chaos, etc. ad nauseum.
Realistic? Doubtful for many reasons. But that's the fear the bureaucrats, pilots, and passengers possess.
1. When so much is at stake to err on the side of caution seems reasonable. 2. I have not been in a plane for a while - so can't quite visualize what it looks like - but in the event of an emergency abort on take off, or a landing that goes wrong - having all loose items stored is a head start in ensuring ones iPad does not become an iGuillotine. Just a thought.
This is why I always look warily at the cups of hot coffee, salads, hamburgers and foods with plastic knives, glass bottles, physical books, newspapers everywhere, babies with their toys and more when I fly 2+ times a month, right? On top of the food and drinks being served to people flying anything but economy class.
I'll take my chances with an iPad in somebody's hands flying into my face over a cup of scalding hot coffee splashing everywhere any day.
It's one thing to tell people to put things away or to watch out for safety's sake during important times like landing/takeoff and turbulent areas (and really, that should only extend to things like clearing the aisles and trays and armrests), and it's another to justify a questionable demand like "turn off your cell phone" in the name of "safety".
EMC is black magic and airplane safety is another and thus nobody is willing to say that using random RF devices onboard of plane is safe - for one reason it's almost impossible to test. By the way owner's manual for my new car contains paragraph that explicitly disallows usage of any RF transmitter inside the car that does not have external antenna (and I would assume that most car manufacturers include similar paragraph in their manuals and also that everybody ignores them).
Cellular networks and cell phones are not designed for relative speeds and RF propagation modes of high flying commercial aircraft. Most access methods of digital wireless networks depend on precise timing where propagation delays are significant and thus need to compensate for relative movement of phone and base station and there are pretty low limits of how fast movement can be compensated (it's almost practical to drive car faster than speed limit of GSM1800). Also higher levels of cellular protocol stacks are not exactly prepared for situation when phone sees large number of accessible cells with quite strong signal and this set changes very quickly.
This sums it up pretty well:
"The regulatory agencies and aviation industry take the position that any increased risk is unacceptable if it is avoidable."
There's some technical channel sharing problems where phones have access to more towers than designed on land. The FCC can't predict what would happen if phones were allowed to stay on in regards to cell roaming. They also don't know the effects on the avionics.
It looks like they're developing 'picocells' to have an on-board tower, but there are struggles with the different cellular bands. Though, there are some European carriers that have been successful with just letting people keep their phones on.
That said - I think if your device doesn't have a radio on it, it should be allowed to stay on. Which probably won't fly given the 'if it's avoidable' rationale.
Well then we are we flying at all? I could just say, "kids it is safer to not go on vacation this year so we are going to stay at home in these nice padded rooms I built."
It's because everyone hates each other while flying anyway, and if people had to fly 5 hours with some dumbass yelling on his cell phone the entire time there would be a lot more incidents of "air rage".
Easily the most annoying part of flying for me, particularly when doing a quick flight from SFO to LAX is the insistence that I turn off my Kindle while we are lining up for the runway.
* People reading newspapers, and books - both of which are larger, heavier, and just as distracting, and in the case of newspapers, a greater obstacle - are not told to put away their reading material - so the argument that "people need to pay attention on takeoff/landing" is not consistent.
* RF engineers haven't been able to prove that a kindle in airplane mode has a negligible likelihood of impacting the flight systems of an airplane. Really?
One solution, albeit a slightly annoying one, is to have a distinctively colored LED or indicator that is visible from the walkway of the airplane to a stewardess, but not annoying to the reader, which indicates whether a device has been placed in airplane mode.
The new motto then would be "Everyone please place their FAA certified equipment into airplane safety mode. All other electronics, iPads, kindles, laptops, gameboys, iPhones, iPods, must now be put away"
People, being people, would likely start putting the fake LEDs on their electronics to simulate the FAA approved one, unfortunately, not sure what to do about that.
I wouldn't worry about people putting fake LEDs on their devices. It's not like a handful of devices being improperly turned on will do anything bad anyway. Do you think all 200+ people on a plane remember to turn off your cell phones? Fat chance. If consumer RF equipment could bring down a plane when used in small numbers, airliners would be raining from the skies.
What are the consequences for simply refusing to obey a crew member's instruction to power down your Kindle? Sort of like willfully ignoring the distinction between the first-class and economy security lines---something I wish more people would do.
If you are getting ready for take-off, the plane returns to the gate and you are escorted off the flight and charged with compromising airline safety and ignoring a steward's order. This happened to a guy two rows in front of me on an American Airlines flight a couple of years ago. He twice refused to turn off his mobile phone as we were taxiing towards the runway.
Why not just lie? You genuinely are making the attendant's job harder by telling them point blank that you refuse to comply with the order they have to give to you to take off. It's much easier for everyone if you just act like you turned it off.
> What are the consequences for simply refusing to obey a crew member's instruction to power down your Kindle?
There's two Federal laws at play: one that requires crewmembers to tell you to power off the device (FAR 121.306), and one that requires you to comply with an lawful instruction given by a crewmember (49 USC Sec. 46504) (Since getting you to turn off the device is a crewmember duty spelled out by the FAA, your refusal to comply falls under "lessens the ability of the member or attendant to perform those duties". Intimidation seems to be broadly interpreted in courts as meaning anything other than cooperation. It doesn't matter if you refuse politely).
Thus the potential consequences are: you can be fined under title 18, imprisoned for not more than 20 years, or both.
The last time I flew, most of the people around me didn't know the difference between "airplane mode", "standby", and "off". I'd bet that at least 80% of the phones on that flight were full on despite the efforts of the crew and the device's owners.
Everyone turning off everything successfully before takeoff is pure fiction.
Cell phone transmissions are much less frequent when the phone is idle than when it is in active use. Even if people just stop talking on the phones, it's better than nothing.
Reminds me of a Southwest flight attendent on a recent flight: "The definition of 'turn off all electronic devices' is to 'turn off any device that is electronic'.
There's a big difference in power levels between wifi (that only has to go a few hundred feet to the on-plane transceiver) and cell phone radio (that has to go possibly several miles to a ground tower). Additionally, GSM has a transmission pattern that can cause noise in radio receivers and other audio devices - just try holding an active GSM phone up against a poorly shielded speaker sometime!
I know all this. I also know that people will forget to turn their phones off, will have phones and laptops and all manner of devices in checked luggage that are possibly left on, and that these signals are all around the plane anyway.
If there were any credible threat from leaving your phone on, or having it actively transmitting, then ALL phones would be outright banned from the plane. Otherwise, a group of terrorists could take down a plane simply by passively not turning their phones off? When you look at all of the other TSA security theater bullshit, it's a safe conclusion (IMO) that the RF from your phone will not interfere with the operation of the plane, based on the simple fact that they are not banned in the first place.
Not to mention, I think that if this were even a moderate concern it would be easy to equip the flight attendants with an RF monitoring device they could walk down the aisle with and detect close-proximity transmitters from cell phones.
On modern flights where coach seats have been spaced at the minimum allowable level and people are forced to bring everything as carry on to avoid bagge fees you see far more safety threats from under-seat luggage sticking out into the seating aisle, potentially inhibiting safe exit of the plane in an actual emergency.
Lithium Ion batteries are allowed on planes as well. Is this conclusive proof that they can't damage the plane if they catch on fire?
All decisions are trade-offs, banning laptops and cellphones today would probably bankrupt the airlines since nobody would fly. Likewise, non-critical computer systems in an airplane have less stringent certification standards than critical systems (it's OK for the electronic flight bag laptop to occasionally crash if you keep a stack of paper charts in the cockpit).
It's not like a plane is likely to just go down because of interference, but instruments acting will certainly increase the workload of pilots, making an accident more likely. Likewise, people shining lasers at airplanes tell themselves that this is OK, surely the pilots can deal with a little light disturbing their night vision? They don't appreciate that the pilots already have a high workload during landing.
The wikipedia article (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mobile_phones_on_aircraft) has a link to a NASA study of interference events showing that they can in fact happen (although not often). Of course, you can still claim that these pilots are making stuff up or that this is another NASA conspiracy, but it's actually possible to read up on the subject instead of just offering wild theories and speculations based on your own opinion and wishes.
The times I've used it, they turn off the in-flight Wifi at the same time all the other electronics are supposed to be turned off. So that seems consistent to me.
The method used in that article is just counting flight incidents in some historical data that may possibly have been caused by interference. The evidence that consumer electronics are the cause is just anecdotal:
"In one telling incident, a flight crew stated that a 30-degree navigation error was immediately corrected after a passenger turned off a DVD player and that the error reoccurred when the curious crew asked the passenger to switch the player on again."
After a 30-degree navigation error was corrected by turning off a DVD player, would the pilot seriously endanger the aircraft by asking the passenger to turn it on again to test? Anecdotal, and probably completely false.
> After a 30-degree navigation error was corrected by turning off a DVD player, would the pilot seriously endanger the aircraft by asking the passenger to turn it on again to test?
No?
1. It was already demonstrated that turning it off fixed it. If you see the instruments goof up again, you tell the guy to turn the player back off.
2. Pilots are extensively trained to deal with equipment failures, including total loss of power and instruments.
I don't buy it. Ostensibly, this is a commercial flight where lives are at stake, so I strongly doubt that absent FAA direction the pilot requested this test.
It was already demonstrated that turning it off fixed it. If you see the instruments goof up again, you tell the guy to turn the player back off.
It's unclear from the account whether this was an instrument error or an actual flight path deviation. The latter being a more serious and unpredictable error. Who in their right mind would want to repro this given the unknowns?
Pilots are extensively trained to deal with equipment failures, including total loss of power and instruments.
Pilots also operate in an environment of substantial regulation where I'm sure a policy exists for investigation of operational interference. I suspect this policy is in line with the FAA's stance that "avoidable interference is unacceptable" and certainly this incident describes an avoidable interference.
I don't see any reason to retract my position that this story is likely a myth.
EDIT: My position depends on a number of assumptions that may be faulty: that this incident took place in the USA, within the last decade, on a plane operated by a significant carrier.
If a portable DVD player (which presumably doesn't contain any transmitting radios) causes a 30-degree navigation error, the problem is with the aircraft, PERIOD. FULL STOP.
Here's what I don't understand, and admittedly I have very little knowledge of the industry.
There seems to be some sort of approval process for electronics to be vetted during takeoff and landing. Several in-chair entertainment systems seem to have this rating/designation and are allowed during takeoff/landing.
So, is there no dollar amount that could be paid to properly test a particular product? Let's say the Kindle or iPod. It may be millions of dollars, but wouldn't there be a huge word-of-mouth and marketing upside if you could get approved for such a thing?
I currently work in developmental flight test. Any time we add a new piece of electronics to an aircraft (or replace an existing piece with a new version), be it a radio, a computer, or test instrumentation, we have to conduct an Electromagnetic Compatibility (EMC) Safety of Flight Test (SOFT) to make sure that the new equipment does not interfere in any way with avionics that are critical to safety of flight. Even if it's something that's not being installed per se (e.g. a laptop for collecting test data), it has to be tested. Sometimes there are exceptions, such as very minor upgrades, especially minor software updates.
Generally everything is designed so as to not interfere, but every once in a while something causes unexpected interference. Sometimes it's because the designers screwed up, sometimes it's because a bespoke item wasn't manufactured to the correct spec, and sometimes it's because of something nobody anticipated.
The problem with consumer electronics is that they haven't gone through this process. None of them should cause interference, but we can't be sure because they were never subjected to comprehensive EMC SOFT. Nor would it really make sense to spend that kind of time and money when we can just mitigate the risk of interference by having everyone turn everything off during critical phases of flight.
but wouldn't it make sense for Apple to pay to do the testing? Being able to say "The iPhone is the only phone you can use during your whole flight" would be worth quite a bit of money to them.
They would have to test every model of iphone against not only every model of commercial airliner in operation in the U.S. (including puddle-jumpers), but against every major variation in avionics suite among each model. This testing is not cheap. Even for Apple, it would be prohibitively expensive.
There's probably only 80 different commercial airplane models. This testing probably costs around $1000/hr - figure 5 days testing @ 8 hours a day = 3200 hours = 3.2 million dollars. Seems to be a reasonable price to pay.
As I said, it's not just the different models, it's the different avionics suites within each model (e.g. two aircraft of the same model might have different radios or different navigation equipment, etc.). For each plane, you would need a few hours of testing, which probably costs more than $1000/hour: you have to pay for the plane, the crew (who have to be qualified to perform this type of testing), the ground support equipment, maintenance support, and any fuel burned during testing (e.g. running the APU to provide power during testing will consume a small but not insignificant quantity of fuel).
EDIT: Almost forgot: After the testing is complete, you have to pay to have a test report written up and published, and then you have to pay for the FAA certification process. Probably not cheap.
The US Treasury has less cash on hand than Apple. Apple makes prepayments of a billion dollars for parts. The numbers you're tossing around are, in context, very cheap.
Apple only pays for things that they expect good ROI for. I doubt very highly if they would recoup the money spent to get their phones FAA-certified, let alone the opportunity costs compared to spending that money on something else.
I would hesitate to use the term "dangerous failure modes." The danger generally stems from interference with key avionics during critical phases of flight. For example, if your ILS starts acting wacky right in the middle of an approach in actual IMC, you've got a problem. Likewise, if your radios become unusable due to noise anywhere in the terminal area, you've got a problem. Generally, this sort of thing is caught during the EMC SOFT, which is conducted on deck so that there is no immediate danger. Once the interference has been discovered it's basically a debugging process to figure out what the hell is going in (where is the interference originating, and how is it causing the observed effect). The plane doesn't fly again until it can pass an EMC SOFT.
Usually dangerous interference comes through hard-wired connections: a device that feeds back frequencies into the power system, which then disrupts other devices; or a device that puts noise on an avionics bus, disrupting communications on that bus.
However, sometimes a device, even a device not designed to transmit, can create significant RF interference. For example, a device that has an internal power supply or transformer of some sort. If that power supply is not working right, it might generate an oscillating signal. Maybe even the device itself is tolerant of a certain amount of oscillation in its power and so is not affected by this. Then, there just happens to be a wire inside the device, connected to the power supply that's just the right length to act as an antenna at that frequency, and now you've got an RF transmitter on your aircraft that you didn't expect or want. There are bazzillions of wires in most medium-to-large modern aircraft, and some of them are bound to be the right length to act as an antenna and receive that signal, passing interference into who-knows-what.
That example may sound highly unlikely, but it does happen.
"Once the interference has been discovered ... the plane doesn't fly again until it can pass an EMC SOFT."
Yet, turning off consumer electronics is enforced by the honor system? Is there something else going on that makes consumer electronics unlikely sources of interference that would justify this lazy approach to safety? Why aren't all of these devices confiscated and locked in Faraday cages?
It just strikes me as odd that failure to pass an EMC SOFT grounds the plane until the issue is debugged, but then they just allow an random passenger to bring any random radio aboard just so long as they promise/remember to turn it off during critical phases of the flight.
That example may sound highly unlikely, but it does happen.
So highly unlikely that an honor system approach is justified?
First, it's not just an "honor system," as there is generally at least some effort at enforcement on the part of the flight attendants. I have personally had the experience of having a flight attendant ask me to put away my kindle because I wasn't paying attention to the announcements.
As I've explained elsewhere in this topic, aviation mishaps are almost always the result of multiple factors, where if any one factor had been removed the mishap would not have occurred. "Passenger with unauthorized active RF transmitter" could be one source, but it's probably not going to cause a mishap alone.
In aviation we define "risk" as a combination of probability and severity. You can drive down the risk for a particular hazard by either lowering the probability or lowering the severity. The only way to completely eliminate risk is to not fly, so every flight involves accepting some level of risk. It's really a question of residual risk you're willing to accept balanced against the costs (financial and otherwise) incurred by attempts to further reduce the risk. Several people in this topic have discussed the costs of just the current system of having everyone turn off their phones during critical phases of flight, and complaining that the FAA doesn't apparently care about such things. I disagree with them--if the FAA truly didn't care, they would do exactly what you say: confiscate all electronics at the gate and lock them in a shielded box.
>It just strikes me as odd that failure to pass an EMC SOFT grounds the plane until the issue is debugged, but then they just allow an random passenger to bring any random radio aboard just so long as they promise/remember to turn it off during critical phases of the flight.
Keep in mind that I'm flying in a developmental test environment. That means that we're dealing with a lot of stuff that has never flown before, or are using it in ways it has never been used before. Because of the nature of what we're doing, we already have a lot of risk baked into our flights that an ordinary flight does not have, so we tend to be a lot more conservative about the risk factors that we can control.
From a safety standpoint, isn't the right thing to do to test flight equipment against interference from consumer devices? Simply assuming that everyone on the plane will turn off their cell phone seems like a cop-out.
Having flight safety depend on the (unverified) compliance of consumers is ridiculous. There are only two cases here:
1. Consumer electronics represent a real threat to air safety. They should be banned from planes or disabled (i.e. the battery removed and turned over until the flight ends.) There should be real penalties for non-compliance.
2. Consumer electronics are not really a threat to air safety. We should stop wasting everyone's time and adding unnecessary stress to the travel process.
3. Consumer electronics are not a big threat to air safety, but they can (and have, see Wikipedia article / NASA study) interfered with airplane navigation instruments.
Since it's much more likely that 1 out of 100 or 300 active devices will cause interference during takeoffs and landings than 1 out of 4-5 that are turned on by accident or ignorance, it's better to err on the side of safety and tell everyone to turn them off.
I'm not sure that's valid case... the number of devices per person, and therefore per plane, has been rising rapidly over time (I carried at least 5 "electronic devices" (kindle, laptop, 2 phones, camera) onto my flight home last night.) A plane with 200+ people could soon have 400-500 devices versus 50 a decade ago - at one end or the other of that range they're either not a threat (and we needn't turn them off) or they're a real threat and need more than voluntary shutdown.
(BTW, I watched the folks in my row on the plane, and not one person besides me actually shut down their phone or Kindle. They all just either put them in airplane mode or standby by tapping the off key. So I'm guessing that the reality is that most devices are not actually shut off by non-technical users. Even typing this I realize my Kindle wasn't actually shut off, its 3G was still active.)
I find it hard to believe we exist exactly in the statistical sweet spot where voluntary compliance results in a materially safer outcome than broad non-compliance.
I agree that it probably would not make a big difference, but since there _have_ been reports of interference, the FAA errs on the side of safety, IMO for good reason.
My main point was that it's not an either-or thing that so many commenters make it out to be. It's possible to want to mitigate the potential effects of interference even though this interference is not very likely to cause accidents.
As aircraft are being more thoroughly tested (for instance with WiFi networks and picocells) more and more devices will be allowed, and maybe one day we'll be able to use electronic devices during takeoffs and landings as well. But, like all things in the aviation world, it will take time.
DO-254 [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DO-254] seems like what you're looking for. I'm not familiar with this particular document, but the equivalent certification process for software (DO-178B) is not something that can be affixed lightly on any random product - the overhead it imposes on the development is simply way too high to be viable on commercial software.
Next up in the app store: "Terror" - the app that crashes your jumbo jet. This app creates a magic pattern of radio waves that has a 84% chance of crashing the plane you are currently on.
If you plan to use this app for actual terror, be advised to buy an Android phone and not an iPhone, because there is no way this app will be accepted into the Apple app store.
There is zero risk to a regulator in maintaining a pointless yet harmless regulation. There is nonzero risk to a regulator in revoking a regulation that may be blamed in the future by a crash investigator.
Even if the risk is absolutely 0.0001% -- fear and CYA wins. Our system of regulation and collective transfer of responsibility to regulators ensures that like a federal subsidy, nonsensical regulations are forever.
It looks like the writer meant either 0.01 or 1%, as all the other numbers work out to one one-hundredth. It is a common math mistake to mix the decimal representation and the percentile one. The same thing happens occasionally when people mix cents and fractions of a dollar.
I was immediately suspicious when it was implied that a 737 can hold 20,000 passengers.
Like most such devices, if you hold down the power switch for several seconds it will turn itself off completely. That said, I'd be surprised if more than a tiny fraction of Kindle owners know this option exists.
I think part of it is that the flight staff want you to pay attention during takeoff and landing. Having your headphones on/in means you're not listening to them.
Another part is that the flight staff wants fewer things potentially flying around the cabin if there's trouble. of course, they don't usually ask you to put away books...
Cell phone companies want you to turn off your phones because they mess with the ground towers. Flying past towers rapidly puts load on the cell network to transfer your phone's connection between towers rapidly. Your phone can also see more towers than usual, causing it to possibly flap between them in unexpected ways.
The bit about it being unsafe due to messing with the plane's avionics is total bunk, though. I never turn off electronics on flights, except to save battery.
Perhaps eliminating restrictions on electronics use would have a similar effect. What if the FAA started out by allowing use on a select number of flights where the pilots were highly trained and aware of the supposed risks? Over time, restrictions could be lifted more broadly presuming these initial experiments showed no cause for concern.
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[ 5.1 ms ] story [ 166 ms ] threadI've accidentally left my phone on flying from the US to Asia and picked up cell service in half a dozen countries. When roaming you usually get a greeting SMS message from the new network informing you of charges and it was fun to look at all the places my phone got signal.
The need to turn off electronic devices is proven to be nonsense. But why keep it there? Maybe because it teaches us to be compliant while flying. Listen to instructions and do as you're told.
I'm not a fan of that. So I read my kindle after I've been told not to if I can get away with it. Or listen to music even when we're coming in to land.
If my e-reader ever causes us to crash, humans really should have built better planes.
It makes good sense to minimise that risk.
I recall years ago you were not permitted to use a cellphone on the forecourt of a gas station. No one seems to remember or bother about that now.
Not really. To the extent a risk exists, the only response that would make any sense whatsoever would be to redesign the fueling and/or avionics systems to make them compatible with common consumer electronics. The fact that this isn't happening suggests that the warnings are all just so much hot air.
No one seems to remember or bother about that now.
Perhaps because there isn't a single documented case of a fire or explosion at a gas station being caused by RF energy at levels around one watt.
It's all myth and fud spread by a) people with ulterior motives (see above) b) people who are too uneducated or too stupid to make their own judgement. Like air hostesses, petrol attendants.
The probability that this happens is not zero or low, but very high.
No, it isn't. If it were, we wouldn't be depending on the honor system.
If it were true that the RF energy levels emitted by FCC Part 15-covered consumer electronics could interfere with aircraft systems, it would be utterly unthinkable to permit them on board in the first place, whether "powered off" or not. The TSA would be confiscating Game Boys, not bottles of water. Since that isn't happening, it's difficult to avoid the conclusion that the prohibition is just one more exercise in bureaucratic security theatre.
Some woman started yelling at me in a gas station forecourt last year (2010) because I was talking on the phone while sitting in my car with the door open. "You're going to blow us all up!" she yelled at me (twice), then sped off far too quickly to have been a safe speed for leaving a gas station parking lot. :/
By far the most likely time for any accidents or incidents to occur is during takeoffs and landings. If everyone has 15 objects out and is busily typing away, it's going to be tht much more difficult for flight attendants to get everyone's attention to give instructions, and crucially, much much more difficult to evacuate the plane as quickly as possible.
This isn't controversial, complex or even hard to figure out. It's the same reason they aren't serving food and drinks at those times, and the same reason you have to stow your carry-ons and put your tray tables up at these times.
Disappointing that the Times did not bother to learn this or to write a more informative story.
From the author's submission history he has only ever submitted his own stories to Hacker News.
Regardless of what the FAA says, my reason is still valid. It is also not really in conflict with what you're saying...you're right that it's not really consistent since folks are still allowed to read books, but that doesn't invalidate my point either.
I would point out that people are not really as likely to take a crossword with them in an emergency as they would be a computer.
Also, you're frankly wrong in asserting that electronic devices are not more distracting than a paper book; think of anything involving headphones, for instance.
There are a reasonable set of restrictions for safety (i.e. headphones). There are others that are not. For a point of reference, JetBlue provides satellite radio and TV both in-flight and during landing (as well as sometimes during take-off). They've clearly chosen to prioritize passenger comfort in lieu of relaxed FAA regulations, and aren't concerned about the impact of distractions.
Did you come across anything like that?
If it was possible, I can't imagine that the TSA would let us carry as much as a 9-volt battery on board. Even if it were possible, couldn't you just put shielding between the passenger cabin and the cockpit? EM radiation is line-of-sight, after all.
It seems like a giant non-issue that exists mostly due to rulemakers' ignorance.
For an ILS approach to minimums in hard instrument conditions, it could be problematic - especially if you are off course and don't realize it. There are minimum safe altitudes on approach plates that could be violated if you are way off course (putting you into a TV tower, for example).
I'm not an airline pilot but I am pilot. I'm not aware of anything better than ILS for those types of conditions (very low ceilings and visibility). VOR/NDB approaches are non-precision approaches. The GPS I have access to does not permit a precision approach - maybe the airliners have something better.
But the checklist should check that the ILS is alive... and if it's centered horizontally and vertically the pilots should notice.
OTOH a crafty terrorist could wait for a bad weather day, unplug the airport ILS, and set up an alternate one in a nearby building. Still, the tower would probably notice something was amiss and just say 'go around'.
Don't forget PAR, which generally has mins comperable to, if not lower than, ILS.
Anywhoo, different airports, different frequencies, and differernt ways they might interfere. Since that time laptops have gotten better (and faster, they are all generally over a gigahertz on their various busses), and radios have gotten better too.
A AT&T friend actually mentioned that AT&T had asked the airlines to ban cellphone use (back in the 900Mhz analog days) because the towers couldn't deal with a cell phone that went by a 500 MPH. However I've never been able to confirm that with any public record so I consider it hearsay at best.
[1] http://www.allstar.fiu.edu/aero/adf.htm
[2] http://www.ntia.doc.gov/legacy/osmhome/redbook/4d.pdf Redbook see pages 4-172 thru 4-174
The cell phone ban is an FCC ban, not FAA like devices during takeoff and landing - http://www.fcc.gov/guides/wireless-devices-airplanes
In the old days of analog cell phones, a single cell phone would talk to all the towers in range and hog bandwidth on every one. On the ground not many towers were in range, once you got to 20,000 feet, there were a lot. If cell phones were on on all the planes over LA, it would be like a DDOS attack.
Possibly still an issue with digital phones, but they can do a lot of smart things, modulate power, drop calls to not overload the network LOL.
Not inside a metal tube, they're not.
This is not to say that I'm a "believer" one way or the other, but you should also think about it in comparison to the signals that the navigation equipment is trying to receive with its omnidirectional antenna. I.e., a strong CB radio 26,000 miles away. It wouldn't take any power at all to interfere with it, if the interfering signal were on the magic frequencies (which are continually changing due to doppler effects).
Doppler effects will be extremely small, since the greatest speed differential you'll see will be twice the speed of an airplane (when two planes are moving directly towards or away each other), which is not a substantial fraction of the speed of light. There will be some shift, but not nearly enough to bump a device from non-interference to interference. Or did I misunderstand something?
In any case, I don't think any airliner flying today is relying on VOR.
Whether this is 'friend of a friend' type tale that pilots like to say (and co-opt as their own story) or not is difficult to say.
The same pilot also told me the main reason they don't want you using cellphones on a flight was because the base stations couldn't triangulate properly and identify who was making the call - which is clearly BS. Same pilot also freely admitted to using his own phone during flights.
I guess my point is that the pilots at the same time kind-of believe the official excuses, yet at the same time flout them and make up ridiculous reasons why they are official.
He turned on his cell phone and showed that it wouldn't pick up a signal anyway.
This was about 10 years ago, so things have likely changed.
this said, i never power off my devices...just put them in airplane mode if they have them, or to sleep. i fly a lot, both domestically and internationally.
If you broadcast on the radio frequency the pilot is speaking on, you can jam their transmission.
If you broadcast on, say, the instrument landing frequency (ILS) frequency, the ILS needle the pilot is looking at will stay centered, no matter how much he deviates from the approach path.
The pilot would undoubtedly realize something was amiss, switch comm frequencies, use GPS etc. But it could cause some distraction and wreak some havoc.
Back in the 90s, there were cheap CD players and whatnot that would generate all kinds of crazy RF.
The FAA said, this is all unapproved electronics, we can't test it, it has to go off during takeoff and landing, unless the pilot OKs it. Of course, the corporate pilot will OK it for his CEO/passenger.
But some of the electronics are not in the cockpit.
As far as authority goes in general, and the FAA in particular, I think the FAA and Homeland Security are utterly full of it, most of the time. This issue is more evidence of that; I agree with those who point out that there is no reason to power off devices. Just pointing out that there is indeed a valid reason to want folks to put them away. Especially anything involving headphones.
Let's calculate that. There are about 800 million[0] passengers on domestic and foreign owned airlines in the US market, with many people flying more than once per year.
Each person is taxed between 1-2 hours in terms of "safety" regulations, ranging from backscatter scans to nail clipper seizures to water bottle appropriations. Once on the plane, they are again taxed by about 15-30 minutes on each end from the ban on use of laptops, including the emergency landing song-and-dance that the vast majority[1] of passengers have already seen.
So let's say conservatively about 2 hours in total. So 1.6 billion hours per year. At a conservative estimate of $10 per hour, that's $16 billion per year. This does not include the $8.1 billion wasted on the TSA itself.
[0] http://www.usatoday.com/travel/flights/2010-03-29-airline-pa...
[1] In the unusual circumstance that a first time flyer is on board, a video could instead be played during check-in online, in the lounge, or on the seat back rather than slowing everyone down to look at the flight attendant. Would not be surprised if the percentage of first-time flyers on US domestic flights is less than 5%.
1.6 billion hours per year
= 182648 person years per year
Divided by forty (perhaps the average number of years of life expectancy remaining for fliers)
= 4566 remaining lifetimes stolen
= equivalent of 4566 deaths
which is more deaths than caused by 9/11. Every year.
Nonetheless, flying could be an amazing experience. But fliers are some of the least happy people because they are treated either like criminas, children, or cattle. If the time isn't quite stolen, it is at least spoiled.
Also, the driver can't use a laptop, but because of the driving activity itself, the driver is not so easily bored. Boredom is the main reason why I power on my laptop on a plane. Also, the other passengers can easily work on a laptop, watch a movie and so on. If you've got a 3G connection, the passengers can also go online - even I as the driven, I often find myself checking my emails while driving, plus I'm connected on Skype for the whole ride. The only problem here may be the comfort of your car, as you'll have problems having a laptop in your lap if the car is a small one. I also never get anything done on a plane when trying to work, especially because I don't have Internet connectivity, so I would rather listen to Podcasts or read a book and when driving Audio books are great btw.
So, related to comfort, I always prefer a couple of hours in my 10-year old Audi A6 over a plane ride. If the car ride is longer than some threshold, like the mentioned 6 hours, I do agree that a plane ride is better.
Why would you ever do that? If you don't care about your safety, at least make sure you're less likely to kill others, please...
Note: Number of lanes paints a much stronger picture, but I can't find a good map of that.
I'm quite fascinated by the interstate system; I think it's one of the more amazing things this country's managed to accomplish in the last century. I admit that I draw my sample set from just my experience -- I grew up in the SF Bay Area, go to school near Chicago, and spend summers in Seattle, so all my travel is huge E-W distances -- but I think even if you're right, you have a good argument for N-S rail systems and there's still enough E-W travel that air travel is still quite necessary.
By your reasoning, it would be wrong to complain about cars which have a speed limit of 40 miles an hour, since "the nearest competitor" (bikes, horses?) would still be still worse.
For ease of calculation we say that each person goes to the toilet twice during a workday.
And there are roughly 7 billion people on the planet.
That gives us 0.5 hour per person per day * 7 billion people = 3.5 billion wasted hours.
At a conservative estimate of $10 per hours, that's $35 billion per year. This does not include money wasted on water for flushing and washing hands!
It's clear from this that we have to stop people from going to the toilet during work hours...
</sarcasm>
You can buy yourself out of this miserable experience by renting a plane. Of course, you might still get a security briefing by the pilot, as part of a checklist that he's already gone through hundreds of times while wasting precious time.
No, really. Especially iff
- you are leaving the country (...)
- you are a foreigner (that is: Everything but a citizen)
Everybody around me (including the airport) tells me to arrive ~2.5 (some say 2. Some 3) hours early. The procedure consists of
1. waiting in line forever, waiting for the luggage to be scanned
2. a passport check in that line, asking you questions about where you're from, where you stayed, what you did in Israel and if you happen to carry weapons or presents that might be bombs. If they are inclined to waste some time they are going to ask you for more: Do you know people in Israel? What are their names? Where do _those_ live? What's your connection ... it's something between a 3-4 questions interview and a nice interrogation
3. Your luggage was scanned. Someone is going to tell you to go to that place over there and unpack it. If it's your birthday or Fortuna is with you: Go to step 5.
4. Some guy/girl is ripping apart your luggage. Some are gentler, some really completely mess everything up.
5. The ticket counter! Get your ticket..
6. Wait in line before the security check of you and your carry-on stuff, metal detector, shoe removal station. If you don't have a laptop with you, go to 8
7. Your laptop is suspicious. You have to wake it up from suspend. Close it again. They x-ray it three times. They need to take it to another room, for a special treatment. After 30min they return, the laptop is not suspended anymore. It's off. You are supposed to prove (again) that it's a laptop and not a weapon of mass destruction. Powering it on, booting, logging in is not enough. 'Open a file!'. If you open a picture or a random text file in Notepad, you're good to go.
8. Proceed to the gate, please. You are late for your flight. Remember that for next time and get to the airport earlier, stupid.
Yes, it's that bad. Nothing is invented here, all experienced by yours truely. Not all steps are that bad all the time, but .. I wouldn't bet my ticket on having a lucky day..
- Taking off shoes
- Going through scanner-of-the-day
- Can't take any liquids on the plane.
And same procedure applies also to Israelis as well not only to visitors.
- I had to remove my shoes at the Ben Gurion airport. Granted, only once so far
- Agreed (scanner)
- Braindead liquid rules still apply (maybe softened vs. the US? I cannot judge that)
And while Israelis have to do the same thing: If I travel with a coworker (we usually arrive separately) they pass all tests right away and have a couple of shortcuts (especially concerning passport control, inbound, for example). My experience with tourists, visitors and my own trips says that - well - foreigners start on the 'Might be a terrorist' scale at 3 out of 10, just because.
>- Braindead liquid rules still apply (maybe softened vs. the US? I cannot judge that)
I guess that it might apply more then usually when you fly to US. Flies to Europe/within Israel ok. You can buy whatever you want after security check and bring it with you.
Passport control shortcut, you probably mean electronic system. There is one like this in US for US citizens that I can't use :(
And yes, foreigners start with "Might be..." but usually it never goes beyond questions. "Luggage scan pass" Israeli might get only if they (scanners) are too loaded. In case line is short everybody goes through it. And Israelis can move to "might be" quickly in case they give "bad" answer. I once couldn't answer how old I am (I never know) and was questioned for 40minutes.
When I fly (as infrequently as possible), I have to budget at least 5.5 hours from my front door to boarding the plane. Here's my time budget based on 10 years of flying out of New York City from Newark (and occasionally JFK)
Hmm. Strange to get downvoted for this. What about my post made you think it was unworthy or inappropriate to the discussion?The numbers are high enough that some people (not me) may be downvoting you because they think you're exaggerating.
Maybe I'm lucky not dealing with flying out of new york, but I usually leave about 2hr before boarding. I expect steps to take about:
Individual steps can take longer, but they've not taken long enough to make me miss my flight. I just have less waiting at the end.The camera angles and lighting are a bit surreal when watching it after having been up for 96 hours though.
(It's probably really hard to get the blood off the screen)
I'd imagine the screaming, flailing, flickering lights, smoke, and vibrations would do a decent job of getting people to look up from their iPhones.
> It's the same reason they aren't serving food and drinks at those times, and the same reason you have to stow your carry-ons and put your tray tables up at these times.
None of those restrictions are in place to make you listen to the attendants. They are in place because takeoff/landing is generally the part of the flight that is bumpiest and with the most maneuvering. Flight attendants (legitimately) don't want to clean soda off the ceiling or get hit by a suitcase.
That's not the point. The fact that people have items out (and are possibly blocking exit rows etc), and are not fully aware of the events leading up to the situation is likely to have some impact on the eventual outcome.
> None of those restrictions are in place to make you listen to the attendants. They are in place because takeoff/landing is generally the part of the flight that is bumpiest and with the most maneuvering. Flight attendants (legitimately) don't want to clean soda off the ceiling or get hit by a suitcase.
This is a side benefit for flight attendants and other passengers. Having people and carts moving in the cabin at these times, and in the event of a situation on board makes for a much worse situation than would otherwise be the case. The additional blockages of exit rows, and obstacle of tables being down creates additional confusion. In addition having tables down will result in injuries to seated passengers who are slammed into them.
And devices really don't affect people blocking exit rows, etc.
Lean back for ten minutes and think deep and meaningful thoughts. :)
Edit: spelling, hardcopy thought added
Books and magazines present the same problems as a Kindle. So does a sleeping passenger. Safety should be taken as seriously as possible, but the inconsistent application of the rules only implies that no one has put any real thought into it thus far.
That said, if you you really do want to have them take away books and magazines and force everyone to stay awake during takeoff and landing, feel free to write a letter to the FAA.
The audiences at many concerts I've been to lately would speak to the opposite of this.
If people think the plane's going to crash you will have their undivided attention
I can still have 15 objects out. 10 books, eye mask for sleeping, my neck pillow, a sandwich, pen and pad of paper, candy. I can be just as distracted with those as with a kindle. So that logic doesn't hold.
You've never flown first class, I take it?
And there are plenty of things you could do that would alleviate problems during exiting the plane that have higher marginal value and lower marginal cost than prohibiting electronic devices. For example, you could mandate that close-toed shoes be worn, blankets not be utilized, food not be eaten, and probably a number of other things that I'm not mentioning. It seems likely that your reason is not even close to the actual reason for this policy.
Also, you're just inventing reasons out of thin air. This is not the reason why the FAA has such restrictions. The reason is that it is very difficult to test a plane as being immune to interference from every single possible handheld consumer electronic device, and it would be too complicated to enforce a selective ban.
My 500 ml bottle of water is strictly forbidden.
Couldn't a terrorist could come equipped with a collection of gameboys and tamagotchis to bring the plane down?
I've taken the plane more than a hundred times, I know the instructions and I know no one has ever bothered me when I leave my ipod/phone/nintendo ds turned on. Sometimes the flight attendance asked me to turn it off so I comply, otherwise I don't. Also especially because I like to listen to music when I take off and feel like I'm in a movie.
In addition, keeping passengers calm and relaxed is also a key point of security - roudy/drunk/agressive or even violent passengers can cause a lot of trouble on a flight when there are relatively few, fairly untrained flight attendants on board. Thus, if everybody was chatting away on their phones with annoying ring-tones going off every 2 minutes this would probably start aggravating people, so its just easier to say 'no mobile phones' - and if people have the impression it is a point of safety then they are more likely to obey them.
I have never seen a stewardess calling somebody's attention for reading a book. On the other hand, they'll quickly force you to stop using almost anything that has an on/off switch.
(And tangentially can anyone tell me what the safety grounds are for opening the window blinds? (Or is it just to make the turnaround quicker by not requiring cabin staff / cleaning crews to do it before the next flight boards?))
You come up with a rationale for a set of rules and believe it to be true. I'd argue that this is a circular reference. Natural maybe, to try to rationalize things. But still, please consider that you just try to justify things that have been like that for a long time without a canonical explanation.
In the event of an emergency, that laptop or iPad is likely to stop being a productivity tool and start being a projectile. Just like the carry-on bags they also require you to stow.
Personally, I don't mind the switch-off since it keeps obnoxious people from yakking on their phones (now, if only the airlines would offer infant-free flights...).
[1] http://kwc.org/mythbusters/2006/04/episode_49_cellphones_on_...
Note that GSM phones in particular _do_ interfere with radio systems - that irritating buzz you hear when a GSM phone is near a speaker amplifier can affect airplane systems as well (although it depends on where the phone is on the plane, of course). There can also be interference with _ground_ systems - cell networks aren't designed to deal with the rapid tower transfers caused by ultra-high-altitude phones moving at Mach 0.85.
So conclusion might be something along the lines of "it's not designed to do that", which seems like pretty good justification when you are talking about airplane safety.
1. "it's not designed to do that" refers to cell-to-ground communication, nothing to do with the safety of the plane.
2. cell-to-ground communications issues only apply to cellphones, but the FAA policy applies to all electronics.
FAA's and related regulations are probably motivated by fact that it's essentially impossible to test that aircraft's systems work as intended even in presence of random consumer devices on board. EMC issues can be caused by almost any electronic device not only devices containing radio transmitters (eg. EU regulations require EMC certification for anything that, possibly internally, produces or uses signals >=1kHz).
Most cell towers have a lot of RF engineering put into them to direct the signals DOWN, not UP.
For cellphones, there have been many reported incidents of interference when pilots had them on (search Google). I'd assume testing on cell phones would officially commence with installs of pico cells on US airliners.
The degree of engineering incompetence that would be required to make that happen is nothing short of jaw-dropping.
So, should I be skeptical of you, or terrified in two weeks when I fly to Dallas?
I'm sure they could test airplanes to never be influenced by, say, a sub 2 Watt signal and certify cellphones of never exceeding 2 Watts of signal power.
Put your cellphone near your FM radio. Listen in amazement as the digital chatter between your phone and some remote tower causes interference in your radio reception and affects your listening pleasure. Now imagine that same thing happening to the digital signals in the airplane's electronics while attempting to operate the craft. Catastrophe, chaos, etc. ad nauseum.
Realistic? Doubtful for many reasons. But that's the fear the bureaucrats, pilots, and passengers possess.
I'll take my chances with an iPad in somebody's hands flying into my face over a cup of scalding hot coffee splashing everywhere any day.
It's one thing to tell people to put things away or to watch out for safety's sake during important times like landing/takeoff and turbulent areas (and really, that should only extend to things like clearing the aisles and trays and armrests), and it's another to justify a questionable demand like "turn off your cell phone" in the name of "safety".
EMC is black magic and airplane safety is another and thus nobody is willing to say that using random RF devices onboard of plane is safe - for one reason it's almost impossible to test. By the way owner's manual for my new car contains paragraph that explicitly disallows usage of any RF transmitter inside the car that does not have external antenna (and I would assume that most car manufacturers include similar paragraph in their manuals and also that everybody ignores them).
Cellular networks and cell phones are not designed for relative speeds and RF propagation modes of high flying commercial aircraft. Most access methods of digital wireless networks depend on precise timing where propagation delays are significant and thus need to compensate for relative movement of phone and base station and there are pretty low limits of how fast movement can be compensated (it's almost practical to drive car faster than speed limit of GSM1800). Also higher levels of cellular protocol stacks are not exactly prepared for situation when phone sees large number of accessible cells with quite strong signal and this set changes very quickly.
This sums it up pretty well: "The regulatory agencies and aviation industry take the position that any increased risk is unacceptable if it is avoidable."
There's some technical channel sharing problems where phones have access to more towers than designed on land. The FCC can't predict what would happen if phones were allowed to stay on in regards to cell roaming. They also don't know the effects on the avionics.
It looks like they're developing 'picocells' to have an on-board tower, but there are struggles with the different cellular bands. Though, there are some European carriers that have been successful with just letting people keep their phones on.
That said - I think if your device doesn't have a radio on it, it should be allowed to stay on. Which probably won't fly given the 'if it's avoidable' rationale.
And yet 40 years after the first studies recommending them - they still don't fit smoke hoods
* People reading newspapers, and books - both of which are larger, heavier, and just as distracting, and in the case of newspapers, a greater obstacle - are not told to put away their reading material - so the argument that "people need to pay attention on takeoff/landing" is not consistent.
* RF engineers haven't been able to prove that a kindle in airplane mode has a negligible likelihood of impacting the flight systems of an airplane. Really?
One solution, albeit a slightly annoying one, is to have a distinctively colored LED or indicator that is visible from the walkway of the airplane to a stewardess, but not annoying to the reader, which indicates whether a device has been placed in airplane mode.
The new motto then would be "Everyone please place their FAA certified equipment into airplane safety mode. All other electronics, iPads, kindles, laptops, gameboys, iPhones, iPods, must now be put away"
People, being people, would likely start putting the fake LEDs on their electronics to simulate the FAA approved one, unfortunately, not sure what to do about that.
There's two Federal laws at play: one that requires crewmembers to tell you to power off the device (FAR 121.306), and one that requires you to comply with an lawful instruction given by a crewmember (49 USC Sec. 46504) (Since getting you to turn off the device is a crewmember duty spelled out by the FAA, your refusal to comply falls under "lessens the ability of the member or attendant to perform those duties". Intimidation seems to be broadly interpreted in courts as meaning anything other than cooperation. It doesn't matter if you refuse politely).
Thus the potential consequences are: you can be fined under title 18, imprisoned for not more than 20 years, or both.
Disclaimer: IANAL
Everyone turning off everything successfully before takeoff is pure fiction.
Unless you're paying the ripoff $10 fee for in-flight Wifi, then the dangers are magically avoided.
But really, this is a pain, and deleting a cookie is much, much, much easier.
If there were any credible threat from leaving your phone on, or having it actively transmitting, then ALL phones would be outright banned from the plane. Otherwise, a group of terrorists could take down a plane simply by passively not turning their phones off? When you look at all of the other TSA security theater bullshit, it's a safe conclusion (IMO) that the RF from your phone will not interfere with the operation of the plane, based on the simple fact that they are not banned in the first place.
Not to mention, I think that if this were even a moderate concern it would be easy to equip the flight attendants with an RF monitoring device they could walk down the aisle with and detect close-proximity transmitters from cell phones.
On modern flights where coach seats have been spaced at the minimum allowable level and people are forced to bring everything as carry on to avoid bagge fees you see far more safety threats from under-seat luggage sticking out into the seating aisle, potentially inhibiting safe exit of the plane in an actual emergency.
All decisions are trade-offs, banning laptops and cellphones today would probably bankrupt the airlines since nobody would fly. Likewise, non-critical computer systems in an airplane have less stringent certification standards than critical systems (it's OK for the electronic flight bag laptop to occasionally crash if you keep a stack of paper charts in the cockpit).
It's not like a plane is likely to just go down because of interference, but instruments acting will certainly increase the workload of pilots, making an accident more likely. Likewise, people shining lasers at airplanes tell themselves that this is OK, surely the pilots can deal with a little light disturbing their night vision? They don't appreciate that the pilots already have a high workload during landing.
The wikipedia article (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mobile_phones_on_aircraft) has a link to a NASA study of interference events showing that they can in fact happen (although not often). Of course, you can still claim that these pilots are making stuff up or that this is another NASA conspiracy, but it's actually possible to read up on the subject instead of just offering wild theories and speculations based on your own opinion and wishes.
http://spectrum.ieee.org/aerospace/aviation/unsafe-at-any-ai...
"In one telling incident, a flight crew stated that a 30-degree navigation error was immediately corrected after a passenger turned off a DVD player and that the error reoccurred when the curious crew asked the passenger to switch the player on again."
No?
1. It was already demonstrated that turning it off fixed it. If you see the instruments goof up again, you tell the guy to turn the player back off.
2. Pilots are extensively trained to deal with equipment failures, including total loss of power and instruments.
It was already demonstrated that turning it off fixed it. If you see the instruments goof up again, you tell the guy to turn the player back off.
It's unclear from the account whether this was an instrument error or an actual flight path deviation. The latter being a more serious and unpredictable error. Who in their right mind would want to repro this given the unknowns?
Pilots are extensively trained to deal with equipment failures, including total loss of power and instruments.
Pilots also operate in an environment of substantial regulation where I'm sure a policy exists for investigation of operational interference. I suspect this policy is in line with the FAA's stance that "avoidable interference is unacceptable" and certainly this incident describes an avoidable interference.
I don't see any reason to retract my position that this story is likely a myth.
EDIT: My position depends on a number of assumptions that may be faulty: that this incident took place in the USA, within the last decade, on a plane operated by a significant carrier.
There seems to be some sort of approval process for electronics to be vetted during takeoff and landing. Several in-chair entertainment systems seem to have this rating/designation and are allowed during takeoff/landing.
So, is there no dollar amount that could be paid to properly test a particular product? Let's say the Kindle or iPod. It may be millions of dollars, but wouldn't there be a huge word-of-mouth and marketing upside if you could get approved for such a thing?
Generally everything is designed so as to not interfere, but every once in a while something causes unexpected interference. Sometimes it's because the designers screwed up, sometimes it's because a bespoke item wasn't manufactured to the correct spec, and sometimes it's because of something nobody anticipated.
The problem with consumer electronics is that they haven't gone through this process. None of them should cause interference, but we can't be sure because they were never subjected to comprehensive EMC SOFT. Nor would it really make sense to spend that kind of time and money when we can just mitigate the risk of interference by having everyone turn everything off during critical phases of flight.
Delta... the only airline you can use your iPhone 4S from takeoff to landing...
EDIT: Almost forgot: After the testing is complete, you have to pay to have a test report written up and published, and then you have to pay for the FAA certification process. Probably not cheap.
Usually dangerous interference comes through hard-wired connections: a device that feeds back frequencies into the power system, which then disrupts other devices; or a device that puts noise on an avionics bus, disrupting communications on that bus.
However, sometimes a device, even a device not designed to transmit, can create significant RF interference. For example, a device that has an internal power supply or transformer of some sort. If that power supply is not working right, it might generate an oscillating signal. Maybe even the device itself is tolerant of a certain amount of oscillation in its power and so is not affected by this. Then, there just happens to be a wire inside the device, connected to the power supply that's just the right length to act as an antenna at that frequency, and now you've got an RF transmitter on your aircraft that you didn't expect or want. There are bazzillions of wires in most medium-to-large modern aircraft, and some of them are bound to be the right length to act as an antenna and receive that signal, passing interference into who-knows-what.
That example may sound highly unlikely, but it does happen.
Yet, turning off consumer electronics is enforced by the honor system? Is there something else going on that makes consumer electronics unlikely sources of interference that would justify this lazy approach to safety? Why aren't all of these devices confiscated and locked in Faraday cages?
It just strikes me as odd that failure to pass an EMC SOFT grounds the plane until the issue is debugged, but then they just allow an random passenger to bring any random radio aboard just so long as they promise/remember to turn it off during critical phases of the flight.
That example may sound highly unlikely, but it does happen.
So highly unlikely that an honor system approach is justified?
As I've explained elsewhere in this topic, aviation mishaps are almost always the result of multiple factors, where if any one factor had been removed the mishap would not have occurred. "Passenger with unauthorized active RF transmitter" could be one source, but it's probably not going to cause a mishap alone.
In aviation we define "risk" as a combination of probability and severity. You can drive down the risk for a particular hazard by either lowering the probability or lowering the severity. The only way to completely eliminate risk is to not fly, so every flight involves accepting some level of risk. It's really a question of residual risk you're willing to accept balanced against the costs (financial and otherwise) incurred by attempts to further reduce the risk. Several people in this topic have discussed the costs of just the current system of having everyone turn off their phones during critical phases of flight, and complaining that the FAA doesn't apparently care about such things. I disagree with them--if the FAA truly didn't care, they would do exactly what you say: confiscate all electronics at the gate and lock them in a shielded box.
>It just strikes me as odd that failure to pass an EMC SOFT grounds the plane until the issue is debugged, but then they just allow an random passenger to bring any random radio aboard just so long as they promise/remember to turn it off during critical phases of the flight.
Keep in mind that I'm flying in a developmental test environment. That means that we're dealing with a lot of stuff that has never flown before, or are using it in ways it has never been used before. Because of the nature of what we're doing, we already have a lot of risk baked into our flights that an ordinary flight does not have, so we tend to be a lot more conservative about the risk factors that we can control.
[EDIT to add quote for context]
Having flight safety depend on the (unverified) compliance of consumers is ridiculous. There are only two cases here:
1. Consumer electronics represent a real threat to air safety. They should be banned from planes or disabled (i.e. the battery removed and turned over until the flight ends.) There should be real penalties for non-compliance.
2. Consumer electronics are not really a threat to air safety. We should stop wasting everyone's time and adding unnecessary stress to the travel process.
Since it's much more likely that 1 out of 100 or 300 active devices will cause interference during takeoffs and landings than 1 out of 4-5 that are turned on by accident or ignorance, it's better to err on the side of safety and tell everyone to turn them off.
(BTW, I watched the folks in my row on the plane, and not one person besides me actually shut down their phone or Kindle. They all just either put them in airplane mode or standby by tapping the off key. So I'm guessing that the reality is that most devices are not actually shut off by non-technical users. Even typing this I realize my Kindle wasn't actually shut off, its 3G was still active.)
I find it hard to believe we exist exactly in the statistical sweet spot where voluntary compliance results in a materially safer outcome than broad non-compliance.
My main point was that it's not an either-or thing that so many commenters make it out to be. It's possible to want to mitigate the potential effects of interference even though this interference is not very likely to cause accidents.
As aircraft are being more thoroughly tested (for instance with WiFi networks and picocells) more and more devices will be allowed, and maybe one day we'll be able to use electronic devices during takeoffs and landings as well. But, like all things in the aviation world, it will take time.
If you plan to use this app for actual terror, be advised to buy an Android phone and not an iPhone, because there is no way this app will be accepted into the Apple app store.
Even if the risk is absolutely 0.0001% -- fear and CYA wins. Our system of regulation and collective transfer of responsibility to regulators ensures that like a federal subsidy, nonsensical regulations are forever.
1, Everybody on every flight for the last 20 years has always complied with the order perfectly
2, People haven't complied and caused numerous crashes but they are all covered up by the government
3, Consumer devices have no effect on aircraft
> That would mean seven million people on 11 million flights endangered the lives of their fellow passengers.
0.01% of 712M is 71200. </pedantic>
I was immediately suspicious when it was implied that a 737 can hold 20,000 passengers.
Another part is that the flight staff wants fewer things potentially flying around the cabin if there's trouble. of course, they don't usually ask you to put away books...
Cell phone companies want you to turn off your phones because they mess with the ground towers. Flying past towers rapidly puts load on the cell network to transfer your phone's connection between towers rapidly. Your phone can also see more towers than usual, causing it to possibly flap between them in unexpected ways.
The bit about it being unsafe due to messing with the plane's avionics is total bunk, though. I never turn off electronics on flights, except to save battery.
That would allow pilots to test their equipment and make sure there is no dangerous interference with passengers' mobile devices.
http://www.codinghorror.com/blog/2011/04/working-with-the-ch...
Perhaps eliminating restrictions on electronics use would have a similar effect. What if the FAA started out by allowing use on a select number of flights where the pilots were highly trained and aware of the supposed risks? Over time, restrictions could be lifted more broadly presuming these initial experiments showed no cause for concern.