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Could your cell phone make you an in-flight killer?
Could my Kindle have the potential for murder? Mayhem? Needless to say, I may think twice before firing it up during takeoff on my trip to London at the end of the month!I'll be the first to admit that I thwart airline rules about turning on electronic devices during takeoff and landing. I don't like reading print, and a year and a half after getting it, I still have a comfortable yet steamy love affair with my Kindle. I just can't resist flipping the switch at the riskiest of times during my flights.
According to a report that ABC News got its hands on, though, I might be putting many, many lives at risk. ABC picked up a confidential industry study that indicates the safety issues could be real. Very real.
The International Air Transport Association (IATA) studied survey responses from 125 airlines from 2003 to 2009 and found ... "75 incidents of possible electronic interference that airline pilots and other crew members believed were linked to mobile phones and other electronic devices." Twenty-six of them, a tad more than a third, "affected the flight controls, including the autopilot, autothrust and landing gear." Another 17 hit navigation systems, with 15 affecting communication systems.
Of course, the report "stresses that it is not verifying that the incidents were caused by PEDs," according to ABC News.
Some of this stuff is straight out of horror flicks: clocks spinning backwards, GPS devices malfunctioning and "altitude control readings changed rapidly until a crew member asked passengers to turn off their electronic devices."
Scary stuff, no doubt.
So, is all this real?
Apparently, it's hard to say. According to ABC News's aviation guy, John Nance:
The feedback is mixed, it seems, leaving each of us to decide whether to roll the dice.
Some of this stuff is straight out of horror flicks: clocks spinning backwards, GPS devices malfunctioning and "altitude control readings changed rapidly until a crew member asked passengers to turn off their electronic devices."
Scary stuff, no doubt.
So, is all this real?
Apparently, it's hard to say. According to ABC News's aviation guy, John Nance:
"There is a lot of anecdotal evidence out there, but it's not evidence at all," said Nance, a former Air Force and commercial pilot. "It's pilots, like myself, who thought they saw something but they couldn't pin it to anything in particular. And those stories are not rampant enough, considering 32,000 flights a day over the U.S., to be convincing."
The feedback is mixed, it seems, leaving each of us to decide whether to roll the dice.
Filed under: North America, United States, Airlines
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
Ed Romson Jun 10th 2011 9:33PM
Where is the science?
Eddie Rivera Jun 13th 2011 2:25AM
Remind me NEVER to fly with you. Few things are more irritating than flying with someone who thinks the rules don't apply to to them.
Mary Sep 3rd 2011 5:28PM
Why can't all passengers/crew turn their electronic devices off for the few minutes that taking off and landing require?. People who keep them on think that the world revolves around them. Guess what, no one will die if you turn them off, but somone (maybe even you) may die if you keep them on.