It seems like the question of whether using cellphones on commercial airplanes is dangerous or not is one that will never be adequately answered. The problem is that there’s a lot of inconsistency not only over what the technical issues really are but over how the airlines appear to address about the problem. For example, many people simply forget to switch off their cellphones during their flight. If there is such a big potential risk why don’t the airlines make a bigger deal about ensuring these devices are off insted of the bloodless announcement they always give? What I absolutely don’t get is if there’s a doubt about the safety on using cellphones onboard then why don’t the airlines actively prevent their use or at the very least try to detect them?
Prevention would require something along the lines of an interference generator which could surely be engineered so that its signal didn’t affect the avionics. On the detection side, a while ago I was given a $15 cellphone detector that flashes when a nearby cellphone starts transmitting. Surely something like this above every cluster of seats in an airplane would allow the flight attendents to identify powered up equipment so they could then slap the offender? Am I missing something?
