Doubly doesn't track as airplane mode is often required during takeoff and landing, which barring controlled or uncontrolled flight into terrain usually happens

Doubly doesn't track as airplane mode is often required during takeoff and landing, which barring controlled or uncontrolled flight into terrain usually happens at the airport, where you and the so many folks taking the same airplane as well as several other airplanes are not required to take their cell phone off as a courtesy to operators. I can get the EM interference angle just fine, which stays (or stayed until recently) in place as a vestigial CYA rule of a time when cell phones were crude enough to be able to produce a spark which is what makes gas stations display a "no cellphone" sign to this day because back then it could ignite gasoline vapour.