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Are pilots not following regulations and keeping their cell phones on?
The Federal Aviation Administration has issued a new alert to flight crews re-stating regulations that require cell phones to be shut off during take off and inflight, even those belonging to flight attendants and pilots.It seems that in at least one example a pilot was not following the rules regarding cell phones.
An FAA air safety inspector was recently riding in the cockpit jump seat of an unnamed airline, performing routine observation, when the first officer's cell phone began to ring just as the plane reached V1, the speed at which the captain has to commit to taking off.
Needless to say, the inspector made a note of this gaffe. "It was later determined that the sound came from the first officer's cellular phone, which had been left in the ON position," a report of the incident notes, according to Flightglobal. "As a result the ring tone caused a distraction between the crew members during the takeoff phase and could have led the to crew to initiate an unnecessary rejected takeoff."
Of course, the whole cell phone on a plane issue is a favorite for passengers to debate. Last summer, Gadling's own resident pilot and blogger Kent made the case for the "no phones" regulation when an angry passenger claimed that warnings about cell phones interfering with navigation equipment was just so much hooey.
I'm not that convinced, though, and not just because I have inadvertently left my phone on during a flight and we didn't plummet in a ball of flames. Rather, a lot of airlines right now are debating whether to allow cell phone use in flight (European airlines seem poised to allow them), which to me sort of blows the whole danger factor out of the water. I mean, you can't for years universally insist that using cell phones will screw with a plane's navigation technology and then one day permit inflight calls and not expect passengers to conclude that the danger has always been overstated. If it was truly dangerous, cell phone use would never be allowed, period.
Now, if we could just get airlines to chuck their ridiculous insistence that I can't listen to my iPod during take off. I hate to fly and it relaxes me -- and it's not like I'm going to somehow miss the fact that we have just crashed.
Filed under: Airlines
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
PuckSR Feb 19th 2009 4:51PM
I may be wrong, but I was under the impression that turning your cellphone off was an FCC(not FAA) regulation.
It has something to do with cellphone signals at high altitudes can possibly interfere with cell towers.
Therefore, the FAA is just telling pilots to turn off cellphones because they are DISTRACTING, not because they are a serious safety issue
Terry Feb 20th 2009 12:20PM
The whole thing is silly as cell phones do not work on planes. Have you every gotten any kind signal above 1000"? You may receive some texts messages above that. All the 9/11 type calls you have heard about where on in-flight phones, which there are fewer of these days. Just shut them off.
paulm Feb 20th 2009 10:24PM
Both the FAA and FCC have regulations against using cell phones on airplanes. So the airlines can't say they will allow them since the FCC rules would still come into play.
The reasons they don't want them on airplanes is because they are distracting during critical times. Even if you say you ill notice you have just crashed you probably wouldn't notice a crash would be imanent if you have your ipod going. Think about the hudson river flight. There was only a couple minute notice for everyone and if you had your music on you wouldn't have been aware there was an issue right away.
andre Feb 19th 2009 5:24PM
Do you really want to sit next to someone for 3 hours on a plane listening to an annoying phone conversation? Let alone 50 phone conversations?? People have flown and driven for years without having to talk on the phone, I think we'll be okay if we have to cut the chit chat for awhile. As far as driving and talking on the phone is concerned, I can't believe it is still legal in places. Get a headset or hang up and drive! I feel it is as dangerous and irresponsible as driving drunk.....
Malaycobra Feb 19th 2009 5:45PM
I was told Electronics other than Phones have to be switched off because the arline wants to be sure you had the opportunity to listen to the safety briefing.
Please, let me read my Ebook! If paperback readers are left alone, why should I have to pretend to be paying attention to someone telling me how to fasten my seatbelt! I took a 3 leg flight last week, and trust me, the in-flight magazine doesn't get any more interesting on the third reading...
Shannon Feb 20th 2009 10:17PM
Malaycobra:
You need to take Greyhound then. If you don't want to listen, I don't care, but let your fellow pax listen, and flip through your own trashy mag.
Do you think the pax on that US Air flt. would have been ok had they kept their IPODS on? Take it off, stop being a jerk of a pax. If you are afraid to fly, one, again, take Greyhound, or two, pop a pill!
KELLY Feb 20th 2009 9:30AM
I do not want to listen to 50 conversations throughout my flight. Its enough of an issue for trains. Please dont allow cellphones on planes.
Keith J. Mohrhoff Feb 20th 2009 10:04AM
"If it was truly dangerous, cell phone use would never be allowed, period"
Not necessarily true. Technology does improve. Electronic "bugging" could be confounded by playing the radio, turning on a blender, etc. while you discussed things you didn't want eavesdropped on. Today's technology allows for even the worst background noise to be filtered out. Military sonar used to be unable to detect a submarine if it followed REALLY close to another ship's propellers. Today's software filters to allow the recognition of a second set of "buried" sounds.
It would be unreasonable to think that modern flight technology--being made with cell phones in mind--would not be designed to ignore signals generated by these devices.
Matt jay Feb 20th 2009 10:07AM
Has ANYONE here noticed there are IN-FLIGHT phones in the seat back in front of you? By default, phones can be used in flight. The airlines want you to PAY them for THEIR phone service. I agree that a cell call during take-off is distracting. Another comment spoke of 50 conversations in flight at the same time. That would be annoying.
John D. Feb 20th 2009 10:22AM
Add cell phone off to the flight checklist. Add passengers that don't comply to the refused boarding list. Add Jeffery White to the list.
Jeff White Feb 20th 2009 10:32AM
A particularly lucid and insightful comment, John.
Robert Feb 20th 2009 8:22PM
This is our wonderful FAA. They know absolutely nothing about flying airplanes. It goes back to the old saying. "those who can do and those who can't regulate." I would like to see any accident report that a cell phone caused. Yes, it can cause a very momentary distraction. However, they should be spending more time on teaching people how to fly contaminated aircraft. (you know like we did before we had so many "experts"!).
I hope this inspector actually found something that may improve safety someday.
DJ DILARD Feb 20th 2009 8:22PM
I would think that the FAA would be a little more concerned about plane icing/landing issues than cell phones...?
marshall Feb 20th 2009 9:24PM
Wow...... Interesting debate here. I do think that cell
phones should be switched off during time on duty.
I would imagine the ring tones can be a distraction during
critical stages of the flight.
raquel Feb 20th 2009 9:52PM
I dunno - I remember once being on final approach going through rough air and all of a sudden, the captain came on the pa and made a terse announcement: "This is the captain - I need all cell phones off immediately!" - we the crew did an immediate and rapid walk-through to make sure. So if cells don't interfere, what can we make of that? Rather be safe than sorry.
David Feb 21st 2009 12:39AM
I disagree with the contention that if using cell phones in flight is now safe, then the danger must have always been overstated. Perhaps the airlines have developed new mitigating technology recently.
Jeff Feb 21st 2009 12:42AM
Look? they banned cigarette smoking on planes? and like cell phones? you learned you can go without it? You have/can adapt to the no smoking? you can the cell phones too, period. Just being pure and simple here, NO drama, just do it.
joe Feb 21st 2009 8:37AM
Cell phones, especially the ones that connect to the internet, cause a lot of interference on the headsets we wear up front. Everytime one rings or a text is received or it searches for an internet signal it causes a loud staticy or warbal sound and can make it hard to hear each other and ATC. I've never seen interference with navigation equipment, but better safe than sorry.
Cassandra May 29th 2009 1:42PM
I DO NOT, DO NOT, DO NOT want to hear cell phones on a plane! It's bad enough I have to listen to them in kids during a movie, inside a restaurant while I'm trying to eat, in the ladies room at public places, in front of me in line at the store.
I would literally rip the phone out of the person next to me & open the back & pull out the battery. I don't want to hear stupid, innane conversation for a 3 hour flight.
Heck no, no, no!!
Graham Oct 16th 2009 2:29AM
Nobody ever gets this right.
GSM cellphones (from AT&T, T-Mobile and most non-US carriers) cause potentially harmful interference. CDMA cellphones (from Verizon and Sprint) do not.
This is due to the different ways that GSM and CDMA allow multiple phones to operate on the same band at the same time. CDMA does it by slightly varying the frequency of a continuous transmission. GSM does it by having the phone turn its transmitter on, fire off a short burst of information, then turn the transmitter off again. Unfortunately, and as far as I know unintentionally, this results in GSM phones sometimes turning their transmitters on and off at a frequency within the human audible range.
The problem is, any device containing an amplifier and a length of wire - like a pilot's headset - is potentially a radio receiver. All these radio receivers pick up every transmitted signal. Devices that were intended to be radios contain circuits to amplify the desired frequency and reject all the undesired ones. But a pair of headphones assumes that the only signal on the wire is the one that came from the jack. With CDMA, this is not true - there is added signal at a frequency range thousands of times beyond the headphones' ability to reproduce, and also beyond human hearing even if they could. So nobody cares. But with GSM, there is sometimes added signal that the headphones *can* reproduce, and the human *can* hear.
You can easily test this at home. Put a GSM cellphone next to your turned-up computer speakers and make a call to it. You hear "brrrrrp-brp-brp-brp" through the speakers. Now do the same thing with a CDMA phone. You don't hear anything.
A pilot in congested airspace could be seriously impaired in his ability to communicate with ATC if his headset keeps picking up GSM interference. In the home test with the computer speakers, you will probably notice that the effect goes away once the phone is about 4-6 feet away from the speakers, and you aren't normally within 4-6 feet of the pilot, so even GSM phones aren't normally a problem. But there's wiring in all kinds of places on an airliner. If a passenger with a GSM cellphone happens to be sitting next to the radio antenna wire, it could geniunely cause a problem.
In reality, a large airliner probably has several powered-on cellphones on every flight, just because people forget to turn them off. But "several" is different from "hundreds" and hopefully the phones stay away from the weak spots. On rare occasions a powered-on cellphone coincides with a weak spot and you get interference. This is why you occasionally see the flight attendants run through the cabin searching for a powered-on cellphone. Presumably the pico-cell installers check the cabin shielding and improve it where necessary.
So I think it would be perfectly safe to allow CDMA cellphones but not GSM. But this is probably logistically impossible. If you tell passengers that CDMA is okay, they won't know what you're talking about. If you tell them Verizon and Sprint are OK, they will assume the choice of carriers is just some business shenanigans, and will happily turn on their AT&T iPhone. Flight attendants won't be able to keep up with the changing technology and tell which device is which.
Which means we're stuck with the rules as they are, at least until some new GSM standard eventually fixes this problem (which they seem in no hurry to do).