Smartphone Thoughts: FAA Will Not Allow Use of Mobile Phones on Airplanes

"According to Les Dorr of the FAA, the FAA will not allow use of mobile phones on airplanes in the foreseeable future. The comments came as he told UK’s Telegraph Travel this week that proposals to repeal the ban on in-flight mobiles has caused such an outcry from the American public that the proposal has been dropped. Americans are very resistance to in-flight mobile because of fears that cell phones interfere with the controls of a plane. In the UK, the Civil Aviation Authority (CAA) found that between January 2000 and August 2005 twenty incidents of airplane malfunction were linked to the use of cell phones."

This issue will never go away and I think in the end we will be able to use cell phones on airplanes. I would like to see the "data on the equipment malfunctions" the CAA is referring too. Every now and again I can hear the chirping of a GSM phone over my headset in flight that some passenger forgot to turn off. I have never seen any equipment problems in my plane because of it. In addition, on final approach in instrument weather conditions, the most critical part of a flight, the airplane is flying low over numerous cell sites that are transmitting to who knows how many phones, and there are no problems. This is only my opinion/observation and of course not a scientific study. Perhaps the bigger objection and certainly a valid one, is not wanting to be sitting near people yapping away on their phone for hours.