Are phones on aeroplanes dangerous? : Simon Perry: Schemes, dreams & trivia

"You won't win silver medals at the Olympic Games unless you're the very, very best." - Brendan Foster, BBC1 (source:Colemanballs, Private Eye)

Are phones on aeroplanes dangerous?

6th May 2003 by Simon

After reading Guy Kewney’s piece on the confusion of airlines and their attitude to mobile phones, I wrote this comment to him

I read your piece with interest as it’s been a question I’ve been asking for a few years.

To further muddy the waters, the BBC has a news story today about Siemens running 3G on-board planes. Given the airlines current stance, how can this be safe?

If the airlines do have to change their minds on the use of mobile phones during flights, I can imagine their going to be paying a lot of compensation to people who have been JAILED for using their phones on-board. Neil Whitehouse was sentenced to 12 months in 1999 and more recently, Faiz Chopdat faced a potential two years sentence for playing tetris on his phone.

I was surprised that neither of these people legal defence brought forward expert witness to disprove the threat to safety.

The judge in the Whitehouse case said “the sentence should serve as a warning that mobile phone use on planes would be treated as seriously as violence on aircraft”.

The Civil Aviation Authority (CAA) comment on their Web site says
The CAA has conducted research which provided evidence that a mobile phone transmission on-board an aircraft may interfere with equipment including communications, navigation and flight control systems.
This doesn’t sound conclusive or authoritative to me — too many clauses — “provided evidence”, “may interfere”. I agree, we need a definitive answer.