[Man Eating Duck]

Originally Posted by jbjb

Are you sure? Read (and understand) this article and this one see if you're still so confident.

Cell phones are already legitimately in use on many flights. Surprisingly, they don't fall down or find themselves heading for Timbuktu instead of Paris.

I don't have the expertise to evaluate your second link, but this is from the first article linked:

The researchers found that on average one to four cell phone calls are typically made from every commercial flight in the northeast United States. Some of these calls are made during critical flight stages such as climb-out, or on final approach. This could cause accidents, the investigators report.

Why *doesn't* it cause accidents? There will be made several phone calls from each and every flight, and planes are not falling down east and west? Hmmm, now why could that be...

If you're after descriptions of specific incidents, a bit of googling will find you many. Here for example is an interesting report from the Indian government's aviation authority.

/JB

That is not a specific incident, it's not even a report. It's a memo containing a requirement and an anecdote. The anecdote, which is not substantiated in any way, describes an incident where two events happened simultaneously, one of which happens *all the time*. As you know, correlation does not equal causation:

- People use cell phones on airplanes all the time, unwittingly or intentionally.
- Avionic systems occasionally malfunction
- The probability that at least one phone among hundreds will be switched on or even used in a particular situation is probably very close to one

You conveniently forget the vast majority of flights where nothing happens, even though cell phones are surely active. It hate to rain on your parade (no, not really), but no logic, statistics or evidence support your claims.

And now to the only point I want you to respond to:

Let's look at it this way: If this was a real safety risk, why exactly are you allowed to bring cell phones into the cabin at all? I can't even bring a bottle of shampoo because of safety, surely I should be denied bringing a device which can cause the plane to crash if I don't behave. Why can I keep it in my pocket then, with no one even confiscating my battery?

I regard the above paragraph as conclusive evidence that cell phones are not regarded a safety risk by anyone that matters, among them people far more knowledgeable than you and I. I'm surprised that this simple logic is so hard to grasp.