Boarding a flight can be an exhilarating experience. You arrive at the airport, navigate through security and then the world is your oyster until your gate information is announced and you need to locate it.
However, once you board the aircraft, things become a bit more serious. Flight attendants will instruct you to fasten your seatbelt, raise your windows, and sit in an upright position, reports the Mirror.
Additionally, you’ll be asked to switch all devices to airplane mode. But what happens if you forget? According to one pilot, forgetting this crucial step before take-off is “not the end of the world”.
In a YouTube post shared by WKYC Channel 3, @perchpoint reassured passengers that it’s “not a conspiracy”.
He explained: “This is just a friendly PSA the airplane mode button on your phone is not a conspiracy. So if you forget to put your phone on airplane mode, no it’s not the end of the world, the plane will not fall out of the sky and it won’t even mess with the systems on board.
“However, it does have the potential to mess with the headsets, if you have an aircraft with 70, 80 or 150 people on board and even three or four people’s phones start to try to make a connection to a radio tower for an incoming phone call, it sends out radio waves, there’s the potential those radio waves can interfere with the headsets the pilots are using.”
In relaying an incident that occurred in San Francisco, the pilot recalled facing a distracting “annoying buzz” with his headset caused by a mobile phone left on during takeoff. Detailing the event, he said: “And as soon as we started to get the directions, we got this really annoying buzz with the headset and it kind of sounds like there’s a mosquito.”
He further commented, “Not the end of the world but definitely annoying when you’re trying to copy down instructions and it sounds like there’s a wasp or something lying around you. So if you’re ever curious why you get put on airplane mode, that’s why.”
After sharing his story, many expressed their gratitude for the insight. One individual acknowledged: “That is excellent advice. Of course, I think we all know that not everyone heeds to the policy that all airline companies have during flight.”
And another imparted a clarification: “This is an FCC requirement and has zero to do with headsets. They don’t want everyone pinging towers along the route.”
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