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I'll admit to being in the 30%. I put my phone and Kindle in airplane mode to save battery power, but otherwise I leave my devices in their normal state. Is i

I'll admit to being in the 30%. I put my phone and Kindle in airplane mode to save battery power, but otherwise I leave my devices in their normal state. Is it 100% certain that none of my devices could possibly interfere with critical systems on the plane? Well, no, but 99.99% is good enough for me. And for what it's worth, I made my decision based on the available research plus what I learned based on my EE courses in school (my degree is in Computer Engineering, but I still took quite a few electrical engineering courses, including one on traveling waves).

enraged_camel 13y ago
Airplane mode should be 100% acceptable. The suspected interference is supposed to be caused by devices that broadcast "powerful" radio waves. Since airplane mode disables with the WiFi and the cellular antenna, it is impossible for the device to cause interference. At that point it becomes a completely self-contained mini-computer - probably much less harmful than, say, onboard television screens.
kbutler 13y ago
> 99.99% is good enough for me 99.99% is 1::10,000. Multiply that by 643 million passengers per year (http://www.transtats.bts.gov/ http://www.transtats.bts.gov/), and you get a lot of interference (64,300 passengers whose devices interfere...). I believe that the chance of any typical passenger device interfering with critical plane systems is much less that 0.01%, but we need to be careful with seemingly unlikely events multiplied by large numbers.
- enraged_camel 13y ago
  30% of all airplane passengers never turn off their devices during flights. Now THAT is a large number of devices. How many of them interfered with critical plane systems, and what percentage of that interference caused an accident? This is a situation where we need to move beyond platitudes and run some actual experiments, preferably random controlled trials. Load a couple of planes with several hundred smartphones and tablets each. Have the devices on one plane turned off and the devices on the other turned on. Fly a third plane completely empty as a control group. Measure the interference on all three planes and then compare the numbers.
Osmium 13y ago
> Well, no, but 99.99% is good enough for me. But perhaps not for the other passengers, which is the issue here.
hristov 13y ago
"99.99% is good enough for me" Really? Let's follow your logic. There were 639 000 000 passengers last year. Lets say one tenth follow your thinking. Multiply that by .0001 you get 6390 potentially deadly events of interference. Would that be ok by you? I tell you something it would not be ok by me if I was on one of those flights. Of course the number is probably a lot lower than 0.0001. But it is still too high. The number of recorded events of interference are too high. What this proves is that you are obviously not equipped to make decisions that affect my life and you should not try. You should follow the rules that are obviously the result of much more informed decision making that you are showing here. And I wonder what part of your electrical engineering coursework makes you think it is ok to keep your devices on during takeoff. You certainly should know that your device emits EM waves even if it is in "airplane mode".
- joshuak 13y ago
  This is why statistics get people in trouble (and are only really useful for quantum physics and propaganda). He is measuring his certainty, you're measuring odds of interference, on top of which both are conjecture. Regardless I am quite sure that he is far better 'equipped' to decide his own certainty, just as you are yours.

enraged_camel 13y ago

Airplane mode should be 100% acceptable. The suspected interference is supposed to be caused by devices that broadcast "powerful" radio waves. Since airplane mode disables with the WiFi and the cellular antenna, it is impossible for the device to cause interference. At that point it becomes a completely self-contained mini-computer - probably much less harmful than, say, onboard television screens.

kbutler 13y ago

> 99.99% is good enough for me 99.99% is 1::10,000. Multiply that by 643 million passengers per year (http://www.transtats.bts.gov/ http://www.transtats.bts.gov/), and you get a lot of interference (64,300 passengers whose devices interfere...). I believe that the chance of any typical passenger device interfering with critical plane systems is much less that 0.01%, but we need to be careful with seemingly unlikely events multiplied by large numbers.

enraged_camel 13y ago
30% of all airplane passengers never turn off their devices during flights. Now THAT is a large number of devices. How many of them interfered with critical plane systems, and what percentage of that interference caused an accident? This is a situation where we need to move beyond platitudes and run some actual experiments, preferably random controlled trials. Load a couple of planes with several hundred smartphones and tablets each. Have the devices on one plane turned off and the devices on the other turned on. Fly a third plane completely empty as a control group. Measure the interference on all three planes and then compare the numbers.

Osmium 13y ago

> Well, no, but 99.99% is good enough for me. But perhaps not for the other passengers, which is the issue here.

hristov 13y ago

"99.99% is good enough for me" Really? Let's follow your logic. There were 639 000 000 passengers last year. Lets say one tenth follow your thinking. Multiply that by .0001 you get 6390 potentially deadly events of interference. Would that be ok by you? I tell you something it would not be ok by me if I was on one of those flights. Of course the number is probably a lot lower than 0.0001. But it is still too high. The number of recorded events of interference are too high. What this proves is that you are obviously not equipped to make decisions that affect my life and you should not try. You should follow the rules that are obviously the result of much more informed decision making that you are showing here. And I wonder what part of your electrical engineering coursework makes you think it is ok to keep your devices on during takeoff. You certainly should know that your device emits EM waves even if it is in "airplane mode".

joshuak 13y ago
This is why statistics get people in trouble (and are only really useful for quantum physics and propaganda). He is measuring his certainty, you're measuring odds of interference, on top of which both are conjecture. Regardless I am quite sure that he is far better 'equipped' to decide his own certainty, just as you are yours.