You Don’t Need to Use Airplane Mode on Airplanes | Airplane mode hasn’t been necessary for nearly 20 years, but the myth persists.::Airplane mode hasn’t been necessary for nearly 20 years, but the myth persists.
If Airplanes were that sensitive to RF, terrorists would just be using that to down planes over major cities or during landings at airports.
Or they could just aim a directtv dish at a plane from a safe distance.
Think ya gotta scrape all that rust off first
Nah, adds flavor to the RF… Makes the airplane more likely to drool.
I remember once when I accidentally turned on my phone during a flight instantly the plane started to plummet out of the sky. The phone slipped out of my hands and I groped for it while people and service items flailed around the cabin as the plane tumbled. Finally I slipped out of my belt and grabbed it. With only 10,000 feet of altitude to spare, I finally managed to get the phone to go into shutdown mode by holding the power button down. The plane righted itself immediately, and I slipped the phone into my pocket quietly and kept a low profile for the rest of the flight.
I was sitting across the aisle from you and saw the whole thing unfold. To be honest, no harm no foul so you’re all good, however I’m just thankful those were the 3G days because with 5G airwaves I’m sure it would have been a faster drop.
The problem with the 5G phones is that they effect the thought waves of the pilots and put them into a deep dive trance. I can’t blame them for wearing those tinfoil hats. Modern aviation is not what they taught in flight school.
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That was close, wow. I really admire your composure in zero gravity.
It’s not only the myth, is the airplane crew reminding you of that every single flight. Both on takeoff and landing.
The mentions the reason why; it’s to reduce incidents of “air rage”. Air travel is stressful enough without having people yapping loudly into their phones.
Believe it or not Vodafone will charge you for air and sea usage quite a lot. So be careful if you use them.
You should still set airplane mode when airborne for other reasons besides interference with the aircraft. For one, you’ll save your battery. It takes a lot of “juice” for your device to search for cell towers that are likely out of reach. You may also want to avoid connecting to a tower outside where you have coverage. E.g. for a flight from Anchorage to Minneapolis, maybe you don’t want to connect to Canadian cell towers and potentially receive charges in another country. Obviously this depends on your plan limits. But, yeah, it’s not really about protecting the airplane, in most cases
Most flights I’ve been on had outlets and/or USB for charging, I’ve been leaving airplane mode off for every flight for years now
Come to think of it, I’m pretty sure battery drain is about normal anyways when I don’t plug it in, the radio must eventually switch to a lower power lower search frequency at some point. Either that or the tower searching drains your battery thing is about as overblown as the leaving GPS on thing
Here is a video from TED-Ed that explains why. TLDR: phones looking for a signal broadcast on high power, but planes move so fast that you can end up right next to a cell tower so the high power signal can interfere with other phones trying to communicate.
I disagree with how he phrases a few things, but I think it’s mostly accurate.
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I turn on airplane mode whenever I am already connected to wifi
I thought another reason was to avoid blasting everyone* you pass with your phone’s maximum power signal while trying to reconnect.
Edit: the problem being interference, not any health effects. I read that the effectively one-way signals from the sky worked somewhat like a jammer.
Cell phone radiation is negligible
I don’t think even the combined power of all the phones in the plane would be enough to cause interference for anyone
The phone’s modem is not powerful enough, it takes a couple watts at most, which is tiiny compared to what a cell tower can output
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I’d never go through a US airport without my cell phone in a faraday bag.
Mr Robot? Is it you?
Airlines must be pretty crazy to think not letting people use their phones is going to decrease air rage
Not having to listen to you talk on the phone while I’m trapped in a seat near you is absolutely going to decrease my air rage.
Sure people talking on the phone can be annoying, but that’s not the main thing people use their phones for - scrolling and texting are the ultimate tools for getting people to sit silently for long periods.
Not necessarily - I know plenty of people who talk to their texts. When they receive one, they’ll for example go “omg, why did she do that??” as they start typing the reply…happens enough times especially with Americans 30 and under. It’s similar how many Americans will talk to the on-screen characters in a movie theater.
A lot of things are annoying about flying but one of the top is when phones are ringing and beeping unanswered (or worse, answered) non-stop.
I think airplane mode is more for the sanity of the crew than anything having to do with safety any more.
Last flight I was on had a no electronics at all rule
A person was told they couldn’t have their kindle out during the flight
fucking hell, I’d think about leaving because having to survive the rabid child always behind me, that guy over there coughing the entire flight, that lady next to me who immediately started snoring, and the bi hourly “buy our perfume” plane wide adnnouncements would be hell without headphones
Simple. Bring a record player. Spin it by hand.
Get yourself a Wind-up Victrola
the rabid child always behind me,
The one kicking the seat got to me on my last flight.
The plan was to inform the parent I used to be infantry and I was gonna start teaching his kid some new words if his kid didnt respect the airplane. But he clued in just in time.
Name and shame the airline.
I fly a lot for work, internationally most of the time. Haven’t seen this in many years.
Air Canada - pre-covid though so that might be your many years
I flew many times with different airlines before that without this issue
It will be there forever since it got stuck as a “offline” button. People go offline for many reasons and they look for a “plane” icon.
Since when did you see/use a diskette or a dot matrix printer? You use their icons.
To be fair, printers today come in all shapes and sizes and don’t necessarily look that different from the icons I see.
If airplane mode really mattered they wouldn’t let you even have a device
That’s asinine. It’s like saying “If brakes really mattered, a cop would check your brakes before letting you drive to work in the morning”. Brakes are pretty damn important, but very few places (in the US at least) have any mechanism for ensuring yours are in working order even periodically.
Proper risk mitigation takes into account (at minimum) the likelihood of an event occuring, the severity of the event occurring, your willingness to tolerate a failure, and the cost associated with implementing corrections.
Airlines have an EXTREMELY low tolerance for any kind of risk that could conceivably lead to a catastrophic failure, so the fact that you’re allowed to have a device, despite potential safety concerns, comes from a combination of a few factors:
- The chances of some kind of major interference with flight ops happening are demonstrably pretty low
- People would likely push back quite hard on not being able to use electronic devices for entertainment on a flight.
- Most people comply with the request.
- Related to 3, there is little reason for airlines to change the rule, since cell operation is next to impossible in flight anyways, and wifi/bluetooth are not in the frequency range of concern.
Right, with that extremely low tolerance would come an extremely high bar of security.
For example, you can’t have lithium in the cargo, and can’t have compressed gas or knives in the cabin. And what do we see? They prohibit and screen for those things (to the best of their ability).
They wouldn’t let you have a knife if you promised to keep it in your pocket and not use it.
Therefore it is clear that, as the article states, airplane mode is not a significant factor for flight safety. Because if it were, they would lock up phones or have implemented a jammer or some other such adjustment
Risks exist on a continuum, and something not literally being forcibly banned doesn’t mean there is zero risk in that thing, just that the risk is lower than those things that are forcibly banned or that the risks can be mitigated in other ways.
Same reason you go through a metal detector to check for weapons before getting within half mile of a plane, but were left pretty much on your honor to not bring a Samsung phone with a spicy battery on board.
You know damn well I meant intolerable risk when I implied they wouldn’t allow them
I actually didn’t, which was the main reason I replied.
It’s fairly common to see people arguing as though a thing is either risky or not risky, without any sense of context.
That’s asinine. It’s like saying “If brakes really mattered, a cop would check your brakes before letting you drive to work in the morning”
This argument is also asinine. Cops aren’t in your car. If your brakes fail it isn’t their problem. Cops don’t give a fuck about your safety.
The airline crew are in your plane. If there was actually a safety risk they would absolutely do something about it because it affects them personally.
The reality is there is no safety risk which is why they don’t do anything. If safety was actually reliant on people turn on airplane mode then we’d all be fucked.
The idea that plane safety is tied to everyone together agreeing to and remembering to push a button on their devices is absolutely insane. You think that the regulating bodies that require multiple backups for every possible system also just trust that every passenger pushes a button and every flight attendant actually checks every passengers devices?
No I don’t think that. What words in my comment make you think I think that
I think they were agreeing and meant “You” rhetorically.
Everyone should leave airplane mode on whenever and wherever possible.
The real reason to enable airplane mode is to avoid insane in plane roaming fees, I think Ethihad just did this to me!
They have to pay ManU player salaries somehow…
Airplane mode is still useful for lots of other things. I’d be pretty upset if the feature was removed.
I read this years ago and it has always worked for me: sometimes your phone goes into a state where mobile data or even calls stop working (on android at least). Not often … but it happens. I used to restart the phone, but then someone mentioned that turning airplane made on for a few seconds and then turning it off again restarts the whole mobile comms stack / services. And I can confirm that 99% of the time it fixes any 4G or 5G connectivity issues without needing a restart.
The people who can decide whether to throw you off the plane are telling you that you have to put it in airplane mode. Seems fucked up that they would be basing that on a myth, but regardless, I want to stay on the plane.
It’s because the airline tells them they have to require it, and it’s critical not to deviate from policy when it comes to safety. The airline is being told to require it by their governing authority, who updates rules and regulations at the speed of bureaucracy and an air of “but did you die, tho?”.
