*Airplane passengers are routinely asked to activate airplane mode before departure, yet many travelers are not entirely sure why the rule exists. While the instruction is standard on flights, aviation professionals say leaving your phone connected to cellular networks rarely creates the kind of dramatic consequences most people might imagine.
According to Travel and Leisure, some industry insiders believe the practical impact is minimal. “No, your plane won’t fall out of the sky, and it won’t even mess with the systems on board,” said a pilot and U.S. Army veteran who posts online as PerchPoint in a TikTok video. “However, it does have the potential to mess with the headsets.”
If multiple phones attempt to establish a signal simultaneously, their radio waves may overlap with the frequencies used by pilots’ communication equipment. That overlap is where flight crew professionals say the real concern lies.
Pilots depend on those headsets to receive instructions from air traffic control, particularly during takeoff and landing when the risk of aviation incidents is at its highest. Interference would not typically block communication entirely, but even a modest reduction in transmission clarity can matter when precision is everything.
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Government regulators have long approached the issue cautiously. In 1991, the Federal Communications Commission prohibited cellular phone use during flights after determining the signals could disrupt “critical aircraft instruments.” In 2013, the agency revisited the policy and concluded devices could be used safely if airplane mode was enabled, noting that “technology that can be installed directly on an airplane is now available to prevent such interference and has already been deployed successfully in many other countries around the world without incident.”
Some regions have already embraced that technology. Airlines across the United Kingdom and the European Union allow passengers to text and make calls through onboard systems called picocells — compact transmitters that route signals through satellite networks rather than ground-based towers.
In the United States, however, the situation remains more conservative. Because domestic 5G networks operate on higher frequencies than those used in Europe, the Federal Aviation Administration continues to require passengers to follow crew instructions — including switching phones to airplane mode.
MORE NEWS ON EURWEB.COM: Why do We (in the US) Still Use ‘Airplane/Flight Mode’ on Flights? | VIDEO
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