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While this is valuable information, it is all anecdotal: you're assuming that the incidents you experienced were due to electronic devices, but the FAA has neve

While this is valuable information, it is all anecdotal: you're assuming that the incidents you experienced were due to electronic devices, but the FAA has never tested this, so it's a single datapoint where we don't even know how many (if any) passengers had active devices. If the FAA were serious about flight safety, surely they would be testing this to a scientifically acceptable standard. Then, once we have the data, and assuming that there is a problem, phone makers could introduce some kind of "do-not-send" code that planes can broadcast so that phones stay quiet during flight.

gnaffle 14y ago
The FAA has announced plans for an industry working group: http://www.faa.gov/news/press_releases/news_story.cfm?newsId=13835 http://www.faa.gov/news/press_releases/news_story.cfm?newsId... The difficulty lies in testing the airplanes in such a way that you cover _all_ potential devices, past present or future, with or without manufacturing defects. This is not an easy task. You're approaching the question from the viewpoint of a passenger that _wants_ to use your device. So naturally you pull out the anecdote card and say that since you can't _prove_ it's caused by cell phones, then cell phones should be allowed. Unfortunately, that's not how the FAA, airlines and pilots think. What they think is that if there is a _minute_ chance that turning off cell phones in flight critical phases can give even a _marginal_ improvement in instrument reliability, then it's worth it for them. (And if you don't like that, you can always get yourself your own plane, a PPL and do whatever you like.) Likewise, if you're a doctor and some medical equipment (say a heart monitor) at the hospotal is technically capable of running Quake since it's using Linux, you still don't want to install Quake on it if there is just the slightest chance that doing so could cause the heart monitor to hiccup. If something fails, it's your job on the line.

gnaffle 14y ago

The FAA has announced plans for an industry working group: http://www.faa.gov/news/press_releases/news_story.cfm?newsId=13835 http://www.faa.gov/news/press_releases/news_story.cfm?newsId... The difficulty lies in testing the airplanes in such a way that you cover _all_ potential devices, past present or future, with or without manufacturing defects. This is not an easy task. You're approaching the question from the viewpoint of a passenger that _wants_ to use your device. So naturally you pull out the anecdote card and say that since you can't _prove_ it's caused by cell phones, then cell phones should be allowed. Unfortunately, that's not how the FAA, airlines and pilots think. What they think is that if there is a _minute_ chance that turning off cell phones in flight critical phases can give even a _marginal_ improvement in instrument reliability, then it's worth it for them. (And if you don't like that, you can always get yourself your own plane, a PPL and do whatever you like.) Likewise, if you're a doctor and some medical equipment (say a heart monitor) at the hospotal is technically capable of running Quake since it's using Linux, you still don't want to install Quake on it if there is just the slightest chance that doing so could cause the heart monitor to hiccup. If something fails, it's your job on the line.