What happens when you use your smartphone during takeoff?
Not turning a phone's flight mode on when flying isn't likely to bring a plane down — but could still cause huge problems for people flying in them.
While there's little danger from leaving a phone's connection online when flying, the signals can interfere with communications and cause annoying problems for pilots.
Those problems are something like the noise that can be heard when a phone rings near to a speaker: a slow, percussive thumping. But instead of coming out of a speaker it can be heard through the headsets that are worn by pilots.
Even that is fairly rare — of 50 flights, pilots might hear them once or twice. It isn't clear whether the relatively small number of problems is a consequence of issues being rare or people mostly remembering to turn off their phones.
Sometimes larger communications problems come into play. At least one person has interrupted a radio call between their plane and traffic control, the Mail reported, potentially causing danger for those on board and in other planes.
While there's little danger from leaving a phone's connection online when flying, the signals can interfere with communications and cause annoying problems for pilots.
Those problems are something like the noise that can be heard when a phone rings near to a speaker: a slow, percussive thumping. But instead of coming out of a speaker it can be heard through the headsets that are worn by pilots.
Even that is fairly rare — of 50 flights, pilots might hear them once or twice. It isn't clear whether the relatively small number of problems is a consequence of issues being rare or people mostly remembering to turn off their phones.
Sometimes larger communications problems come into play. At least one person has interrupted a radio call between their plane and traffic control, the Mail reported, potentially causing danger for those on board and in other planes.
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