My objection isn't that the impact of banning electronics during takeoff and landing is unknowable; that's not the main issue with banning car radios, cars, or bare faces either. Instead it's that the impact is too small to be worth the cost.
I agree that the case for banning electronics during takeoff and landing is much stronger than the case for banning them for the whole flight, but I'm primarily objecting to FrustratedMonky claiming that we shouldn't ever chose policies that would lead to additional deaths, regardless of the level of inconvenience that this would impose.
If you wanted to give a fermi calculation for the fraction of aircraft traveler deaths that this proposal would prevent I'd be happy to think more about this, and you might convince me. My sense that the tradeoff is not worth it is based on thinking that (a) there aren't that many deaths to be prevented and (b) banning the devices wouldn't increase the chance of survival during an evacuation by very much.
The reason for banning electronic devices during take-off and landing is because of EM interference, not because of distraction. If you want to ban distractions you need to ban books, sudoku, and noisy kids too, the electronic bit is immaterial.
Also people are already free to use devices during loading and unloading. Your complaint is that people don't have common courtesy, but that can't be regulated by FAA (and isn't currently)
See, thing is, ypur oinion doesn't really matter when it comes to banning electronics during take of and landing, mine doesn't neither. Airlines and regulators decided that, for safety reasons, electronics are banned for passengers. Same as with red traffic lights and speed limits, it stops there.
For what it 's worth so, I don't consider people having 20 minutes less screen time to be considered a prize to be paid, let alone one big enough to change reugulations over.
Another reason I've heard argued by a coworker is that they aren't banning electronics for the sake of interference, but for your attention.
If anything were to go wrong during a flight, takeoff and landing are the two times that they want you to be able to react with zero hesitation. If something goes wrong and you have seconds to react, the less things you're fiddling with the more likely you are to survive.
I remember reading here during an earlier discussion that the ban on electronic devices had less to do with interference and more about safety in case of emergencies.
During takeoff and landing are when most accidents happen and if people have cables from earphones/laptops, are listening to music or are on their phone, it would be considerable harder for the flight crew to get the attention of the passengers and direct them.
The other irritating thing about the ban is that no distinction is made between devices that transmit RF and those that do not. Granted, there are fewer and fewer devices that one is likely to carry and use on a plane that are not capable of transmitting something (e.g. wifi or bluetooth), but iPods were banned during takeoff even before they had wifi, and AFAIK portable CD players and tape players were never allowed either. It actually makes more sense now to ban everything because enforcing that they were all in airplane mode would be impossible, but 10 years ago the ban was universally applied to electronic devices and not only radio-transmitting devices.
Mostly I just want to be able to use my Kindle during takeoff and landing. Maybe it will happen:
I fly a lot.
I see people using electronics for scrolling through photos, playing candy crush, browsing reddit, etc...
The point is, that allowing these activities for a few more minutes during takeoff/landing, is not providing any benefit that would justify killing even 1 person, let alone hundreds.
It isn't like someone is going to use that extra 5-10 minutes of using their device to cure cancer.
Banning all electronic devices on airplanes would be a major headache for everyone involved
I think we've seen that this is not a problem for the Powers that Be. It's not as if the TSA chairman ever has to fly coach.
and would probably be overkill
I'm certain that we've seen that this is not an obstacle for implementation by the government.
but the risk is still non-zero
(Shrug) Zero accidents out of tens of millions of flights in which you can be pretty sure that at least one passenger has left their phone on. Close enough to zero risk for me.
Oh my god. Rolls eyes. I believe that the ban on electronic devices during take off, taxi and landing is completely unnecessary and founded on paranoia. I think the ban should be overturned as much as the next person.
BUT. Do you really have to claim that you're off to buy a STACK of magazines to read in this time? Are you that incapable of sitting unstimulated in your seat for a few minutes each time you fly?
Even though you've stated this in a very confident tone and have a lot of upvotes, I don't really see any evidence for your claim. Stowing carry-ons/no drink service during takeoff could as easily be explained by not wanting projectiles flying about the cabin when the plane bounces, the challenge of keeping your feet while the direction of gravity is shifting around you, etc. None of these reasons apply to electronic devices.
And there are plenty of things you could do that would alleviate problems during exiting the plane that have higher marginal value and lower marginal cost than prohibiting electronic devices. For example, you could mandate that close-toed shoes be worn, blankets not be utilized, food not be eaten, and probably a number of other things that I'm not mentioning. It seems likely that your reason is not even close to the actual reason for this policy.
> Airlines and regulators decided that, for safety reasons, electronics are banned for passengers.
Huh? Electronics are allowed on flights in most countries, including in Japan, and including on the specific flight we're talking about. We're discussing whether it would be good for regulators to ban devices and anything else distracting during takeoff and landing.
I doubt there's any validity to this claim, just another TC bad reporting most likely.
Banning electronics on flights would be the final nail in the coffin for air-travel, even just on international flights it would piss off so many corporate travellers that the airlines wouldn't cope with the losses - many large corps only accept 8hr+ flights for business trips because the employee(s) can work while in flight.
Taken to the logical extreme, it would seem that no electronics should be allowed on the plane.
There is a reasonable line here. In a year 90% of us will think the current one was idiotic. Seriously - I can't read a kindle on takeoff/landing?
Don't get me wrong - I'm all for eliminating risk - but it would have taken very little effort to add WiFi/Eletronic transmitter detectors to planes - the fact that they didn't, means that it was never a real risk.
I don't know if this is a good or bad call, and I don't know if it's being driven by the out of touch perspective of the current administration, or if there is some rational logic behind the decision that the public isn't a party to.
What I do know is that all of the opinions I read about the possibility of an in flight electronics ban ignore the first two questions and jump straight to the impact of lost productivity and inconvenience.
If the point were ever to be proven right, there would be instant outrage that action wasn't taken in light of the threat.
I've always had the theory that rules about electronic devices were not just about electromagnetic interference, but also about reducing distractions from crew-member instructions during takeoff/landing.
Someone might point out that they don't make you put physical books and magazines away, but they don't have the excuse of "electromagnetic interference" for physical books.
Tinfoil Hat Also, approximately 90% of my time spent reading in-flight magazines is a result of the takeoff/landing electronics prohibition.
No, they are banned because of concerns about interference with avionics.
Unfortunately for the FAA, this has been repeatedly demonstrated to be more or less impossible, leading to this sort of ridiculous post hoc rationalization.
Any sort of rule that singles out electronic devices ("anything with an on-off switch," as the steward will tell you) is inherently going to be ridiculous. The attention argument, or the flying debris argument, apply equally well to any number of allowed things (if anything, electronics tend to be lighter than the books they replace).
Ultimately, this was a rule that was made a long time ago, that has long since lost relevance. It should be abolished.
Even on the slightest chance that a consumer device would cause interference, do you think having to put them away is so bad? On take off and landing you are also near other planes, populated areas.
Also don't forget with the 3.5 oz limitation someone did use that kind(Liquid) as an explosive to try and take down a airplane. poor electronics getting jolted from a peaceful sleep with a bullhorn.....
That's dumb, just because someone isn't willing to go to an extreme measure to prevent something doesn't mean that more moderate measures are unreasonable. Banning all electronic devices on airplanes would be a major headache for everyone involved and would probably be overkill, but the risk is still non-zero and asking passengers to turn devices off for a few minutes during the two most dangerous times in a flight is perfectly reasonable.
As with any ban, I question if the response is proportional to the threat. Yes we have all these chemical devices with us (hell you're flying on a burning tank of jet fuel, make no mistake), but the actual number of exploding electronics is so low we don't bother thinking about it. Even the Note 7, which was outright banned on flights, had only a couple hundred incidents, in a market that transports millions of phones a day (not to mention other electronics) routinely for _years_.
In fact, let's compare apples-to-apples how likely you are to die from some of these things in a given year [1]:
* Air accident (any cause): 1 in 767,303
* Traffic accident: 1 in 8,938
* Fall from ladder: 1 in 752,688
In fact, I'm having a hard time finding statistics that indicate passenger consumer electronics are a threat at all. Nearly all plane crashes are some form of human error from the flight crew and mechanical failure. Even the Note 7 didn't bring down planes, despite actually exploding on them several times. Even that ban isn't about the lethality, but the inconvenience and delays suffered because they _must_ check for worse problems.
So to reiterate my point: What is the threat you are trying to solve?
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