Smartphones on board, the pilot speaks: when it's really dangerous not to have them in airplane mode
It has happened to many of us frequent flyers, at least once, that we have forgotten to turn off or put on [...]
Many of us frequent flyers have happened, at least once, to be there. Forget to turn off or put cell phones in airplane mode before takeoff Of our flight. Someone may have noticed the forgetfulness late in the flight, someone else even after landing when they picked up their phone and realized that they had never actually disconnected it from the network.
In this article:
Since we are all still here, some writing and some reading this article, we can say that the oversight did not cause catastrophic effects on the flight. So much so that someone must have wondered. if indeed Cell phones connected to the network during the flight constitute or may pose a safety hazard.
The Flight Club asked this of the First Officer of a large European low-cost airline, who, when asked 'but is it really necessary to put personal electronic devices in airplane mode when we are asked to do so by the cabin crew before takeoff?', replied lapidarily, "We in the cockpit put every device in airplane mode: personal cell phones, business phones, and even the Ipads on which we have previously uploaded the flight plan, takeoff performance data, and even maps of the airports between which we need to fly. Even, this is an item on our pre-departure checklist".
Did you get your flight cancelled, miss your connection, land late?
You could get up to 600€ compensation per person
But is there an objective hazard to flight safety? "The principle is to Eliminate the arrival to the aircraft of signals other than those related to navigation. But there is one case in which personal devices must necessarily be disconnected, and that is what we call the LVO, or Low Visibility Operations" explains the pilot.
"These apply when on approach and landing the following occur. conditions of dense fog, such that the landing is necessarily instrumental, in the sense that does the whole plane and we simply observe that the flight parameters are in the normal range. In these cases, the aircraft lands on its own following a signal that comes from a system of antennas placed on the ground called ILS, Instrument Landing System".
"When these conditions occur," the First Officer continued. we make from the cockpit a specific announcement by which we recommend to passengers that all devices be turned off or in airplane mode, because it is important that the ILS signal is not even minimally disturbed or altered by other signals coming to the aircraft from the ground, as would be the case with those sent to personal electronic devices."
This eventuality occurs very rarely, fortunately. And automatic landings are possible only by certain aircraft models and only at airports whose runways are equipped with a system ILS Category 3, which is the most powerful and accurate one. "When, on the other hand, visibility is normal, landings are usually performed manually, still disconnecting the autopilot from the ILS path not until the runway is in sight."
