You Don’t Need to Use Airplane Mode on Airplanes | Airplane mode hasn’t been necessary for nearly 20 years, but the myth persists.::Airplane mode hasn’t been necessary for nearly 20 years, but the myth persists.
You should still set airplane mode when airborne for other reasons besides interference with the aircraft. For one, you’ll save your battery. It takes a lot of “juice” for your device to search for cell towers that are likely out of reach. You may also want to avoid connecting to a tower outside where you have coverage. E.g. for a flight from Anchorage to Minneapolis, maybe you don’t want to connect to Canadian cell towers and potentially receive charges in another country. Obviously this depends on your plan limits. But, yeah, it’s not really about protecting the airplane, in most cases
Here is a video from TED-Ed that explains why. TLDR: phones looking for a signal broadcast on high power, but planes move so fast that you can end up right next to a cell tower so the high power signal can interfere with other phones trying to communicate.
I disagree with how he phrases a few things, but I think it’s mostly accurate.
Here is an alternative Piped link(s):
https://piped.video/iKYHf22qVdM
Piped is a privacy-respecting open-source alternative frontend to YouTube.
I’m open-source; check me out at GitHub.
Most flights I’ve been on had outlets and/or USB for charging, I’ve been leaving airplane mode off for every flight for years now
Come to think of it, I’m pretty sure battery drain is about normal anyways when I don’t plug it in, the radio must eventually switch to a lower power lower search frequency at some point. Either that or the tower searching drains your battery thing is about as overblown as the leaving GPS on thing
I thought another reason was to avoid blasting everyone* you pass with your phone’s maximum power signal while trying to reconnect.
Edit: the problem being interference, not any health effects. I read that the effectively one-way signals from the sky worked somewhat like a jammer.
If airplane mode really mattered they wouldn’t let you even have a device
The idea that plane safety is tied to everyone together agreeing to and remembering to push a button on their devices is absolutely insane. You think that the regulating bodies that require multiple backups for every possible system also just trust that every passenger pushes a button and every flight attendant actually checks every passengers devices?
No I don’t think that. What words in my comment make you think I think that
That’s asinine. It’s like saying “If brakes really mattered, a cop would check your brakes before letting you drive to work in the morning”. Brakes are pretty damn important, but very few places (in the US at least) have any mechanism for ensuring yours are in working order even periodically.
Proper risk mitigation takes into account (at minimum) the likelihood of an event occuring, the severity of the event occurring, your willingness to tolerate a failure, and the cost associated with implementing corrections.
Airlines have an EXTREMELY low tolerance for any kind of risk that could conceivably lead to a catastrophic failure, so the fact that you’re allowed to have a device, despite potential safety concerns, comes from a combination of a few factors:
- The chances of some kind of major interference with flight ops happening are demonstrably pretty low
- People would likely push back quite hard on not being able to use electronic devices for entertainment on a flight.
- Most people comply with the request.
- Related to 3, there is little reason for airlines to change the rule, since cell operation is next to impossible in flight anyways, and wifi/bluetooth are not in the frequency range of concern.
Right, with that extremely low tolerance would come an extremely high bar of security.
For example, you can’t have lithium in the cargo, and can’t have compressed gas or knives in the cabin. And what do we see? They prohibit and screen for those things (to the best of their ability).
They wouldn’t let you have a knife if you promised to keep it in your pocket and not use it.
Therefore it is clear that, as the article states, airplane mode is not a significant factor for flight safety. Because if it were, they would lock up phones or have implemented a jammer or some other such adjustment
Risks exist on a continuum, and something not literally being forcibly banned doesn’t mean there is zero risk in that thing, just that the risk is lower than those things that are forcibly banned or that the risks can be mitigated in other ways.
Same reason you go through a metal detector to check for weapons before getting within half mile of a plane, but were left pretty much on your honor to not bring a Samsung phone with a spicy battery on board.
That’s asinine. It’s like saying “If brakes really mattered, a cop would check your brakes before letting you drive to work in the morning”
This argument is also asinine. Cops aren’t in your car. If your brakes fail it isn’t their problem. Cops don’t give a fuck about your safety.
The airline crew are in your plane. If there was actually a safety risk they would absolutely do something about it because it affects them personally.
The reality is there is no safety risk which is why they don’t do anything. If safety was actually reliant on people turn on airplane mode then we’d all be fucked.
Absolutely still turn it on though, or your phone will be pushing it’s power to the max screaming for cell towers the whole flight.
But sure if you want to pop it on when you get close to landing, you can usually get a signal that low.
Not if there is a picocell on board - that’s one of the major points of the article, including the EU mandating their installing on flights in Europe to enable people to connect.
However I agree with the airlines that lobbied in the US against this. It’s going to be a source of air rage - people crammed in a small space do not want to listen to other people yapping loudly on cell phones or video calls. It’s simpler to just ban it outright. Although I am sure the airlines also don’t want to have to pay for data connections and their air staff be responsible for dealing with irate customers when the connection is out.
But airlines have already started monetising things by making WiFi available on board flights for a fee - that is already opening the door to calls. I suspect we’ll end up with it as standard and a fight against exorbitant charges for connecting imposed by airlines.
You’ll have 4G and possibly 5G throughout the whole flight inside Norway. It’s not uncommon to see people browsing Netflix on their flight.
Interesting, I’ve never gotten any signal after the first 15 minutes or so inside the US.
Does the US have decent coverage? Over 85% of the land area in Norway is covered, 99,9% if we go by where people live, so you’ll have coverage even deep into fjords or mountains up here.
The country, not the company. I don’t think Norwegian got 4G cell towers strapped to their airplanes
I remember once when I accidentally turned on my phone during a flight instantly the plane started to plummet out of the sky. The phone slipped out of my hands and I groped for it while people and service items flailed around the cabin as the plane tumbled. Finally I slipped out of my belt and grabbed it. With only 10,000 feet of altitude to spare, I finally managed to get the phone to go into shutdown mode by holding the power button down. The plane righted itself immediately, and I slipped the phone into my pocket quietly and kept a low profile for the rest of the flight.
I was sitting across the aisle from you and saw the whole thing unfold. To be honest, no harm no foul so you’re all good, however I’m just thankful those were the 3G days because with 5G airwaves I’m sure it would have been a faster drop.
Here is an alternative Piped link(s):
https://piped.video/pSlG_m-bbGM?si=iaAzX_pNlNBbdOnz
Piped is a privacy-respecting open-source alternative frontend to YouTube.
I’m open-source; check me out at GitHub.
It’s not only the myth, is the airplane crew reminding you of that every single flight. Both on takeoff and landing.
