On Fri, 28 Jan 2011 11:31:22 +0000, scott wrote:

>> There's probably nothing that prevents the cell signal from being used,
>> and if the plane is already doomed, turning on a cell phone isn't
>> likely to make things worse.
> 
> Probably thousands of people leave their phone on by mistake (or on
> purpose) on flights daily, I've done it myself (by accident) at least
> twice.  It surely isn't much of a safety issue otherwise they would
> rigorously check every single phone on board.

If it were, they'd ask you to turn off the phone, remove the battery, and 
put it in checked baggage.  Same with laptops.

That in and of itself tells me it's not as big a danger as they want 
people to believe.

> I imagine also below a certain height you can easily get a signal from
> the ground based base stations, occasionally on a flight you hear
> someone's phone beep as the plane is coming in to land.

Yep.

Jim

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