No, switching on your phone in an airplane won’t cause it to crash. But here’s why you shouldn’t do it either.
Travelling in an airplane involves following a lot of rules, and one that tends to frustrate the most is the need to switch off your phone. Wouldn’t you rather spend time surfing the Internet or chatting with friends? But there’s a perfectly logical reason why airlines insist you switch off your phone or put it on airplane mode, and yes it has to do with your safety.
The popular belief is that the radio frequency emitted by mobile phones could interfere with important electrical and telecommunications systems, and cause a plane to crash. The real reason though is much less sinister.
In a blog post for AirlineUpdates (via DailyMail), a pilot writes how switching on your phone in the flight will actually disturb the plane’s pilots and the air traffic controllers. While it actually causes an interference in the communication systems, it is not as dangerous as it is annoying.
The pilot writes that it creates a ‘dit-dit-dit’ noise, similar to when you keep a mobile phone near a set of speakers. “I actually heard such noise on the radio while flying. It is not safety critical, but is annoying for sure,” the pilot writes. He further adds that while a single cell phone may not create a lot of disturbance, it would create a very unpleasant situation if all passengers were to switch on their phones.
In India, airlines insist passengers switch off their phones or put them on flight mode as soon as the plane leaves the bay. You can switch it on again, only after the plane has landed and is taxing towards the terminal.
Rule 29B of India’s Aircraft Rules prohibits the use of portable electronic devices in a flight. “No person shall operate, nor shall the operator or the pilot-in-command of an aircraft allow the operation of any portable electronic device on board an aircraft in flight,” the rule says. “The Pilot-in-Command may permit the use of cellular telephone by the passengers of a flight after the aircraft has landed and cleared active runway,” it further states.
Source: bgr.in
Top Brands
