Bill Greenwood
06-30-2018, 09:15 AM
Most of us who are pilots know that airlines, at least the U S majors have an superb safety record these days, They may be indifferent or even rude,but not unsafe, and safer than driving or flying our own planes.
But there is a huge risk factor that most pilots dont think about and that we dont have any way of controlling even if we are alerted to it. It's the "not in airplane mode" for cell phones. You have no way of knowing if all the other passengers actually put their phones in "airplane mode" when politely asked to do so by the friendly, personable, patient Flight Attendant. And what if passengers dont instantly comply? That's courting disaster, all manner of malfunctions may occur. Engine failure, smoke in the cabin, part of the gear not retracting and not lowering fully for landing, all nav/com radios going blank.
Try it yourself, in your own plane, the next time you fly, just leave your cell phone on in normal mode. If you really want to make it an unbiased trial, have a rear seat passenger turn their phone on and off without telling you when. But beware of the consequences, and be prepared to use all your best pilot skills to deal with any emergency.
Now a few of you may be skeptics, you might even point out that logically if a cell phone could really affect a plane in flight, then terrorist might have an easy time, just board a dozen or so with cell phones.
But let's not bring logic into the discussion, and using logic with an angry F A is going to be as successful as trying to talk the Pepsi machine into vending you a Coke.
But there is a huge risk factor that most pilots dont think about and that we dont have any way of controlling even if we are alerted to it. It's the "not in airplane mode" for cell phones. You have no way of knowing if all the other passengers actually put their phones in "airplane mode" when politely asked to do so by the friendly, personable, patient Flight Attendant. And what if passengers dont instantly comply? That's courting disaster, all manner of malfunctions may occur. Engine failure, smoke in the cabin, part of the gear not retracting and not lowering fully for landing, all nav/com radios going blank.
Try it yourself, in your own plane, the next time you fly, just leave your cell phone on in normal mode. If you really want to make it an unbiased trial, have a rear seat passenger turn their phone on and off without telling you when. But beware of the consequences, and be prepared to use all your best pilot skills to deal with any emergency.
Now a few of you may be skeptics, you might even point out that logically if a cell phone could really affect a plane in flight, then terrorist might have an easy time, just board a dozen or so with cell phones.
But let's not bring logic into the discussion, and using logic with an angry F A is going to be as successful as trying to talk the Pepsi machine into vending you a Coke.