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[–] 29 points 4 months ago* (21 children)

I don’t think that.

The odds of any phone interfering, interfering with a critical system, interfering with that system at a critical time, and interfering substantially enough to cause a deviation that would be not caught by the crew, and the deviation was significant enough to cause damage…are miniscule.

Turn your phone off to hear the safety briefing.

I just think you’re an asshole who is apparently too good for the rules or request of the flight crew.

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  • [–] 7 points 4 months ago (3 children)

    Theres an old conspiracy theory, pre smart phone, that it was about preventing terrorists using phones as missile guidance. Basically, if you see a cellphone jumping 1 tower to the next, you can tell speed by distance and time between towers' coverage areas.

    They didnt want phones on planes creating constant false positives theyd have to verify against flight logs, etc, and obviously didnt want to give enemies ideas ideas, hence the line about interference, but of interference were a likely hazard, theyd be locking up phones for the flight.

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  • [–] 6 points 4 months ago

    You’re conflating two things. One is GPS, which is designed to stop functioning above 1,000 knots to prevent it from being used in a missile.

    The other is the interference of which I spoke having to do with electronics like cellphones that operate at harmonics that overlay frequencies used by aircraft navigation systems. It can be demonstrated that they do indeed interfere, but so many things have to happen to make the interference happen it’s wildly unlikely. So many things have changed over the years that prevent this from happening, like cellphones operate at lower power, personal electronics are better shielded, and operate at lower power. On top of that, the aircraft’s RF and EM shielding would have to be damaged in just the right spot, and the electronic device would have to be right near the damage.

    As far as cell towers go, most phones are too weak to make a good connection from all but the lowest altitudes, and you’re moving fast enough that it can’t handshake the next tower and negotiate the connection quick enough to have a good connection except maybe st the slowest speeds and altitude on approach for landing.

    I did a minor study on this exact subject, but it’s been decades, so the details are fuzzy.

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  • [–] 3 points 4 months ago (1 child)

    And that was/is possible at that height?

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  • [–] 2 points 4 months ago

    It's not. Hence the conspiracy thing. The pain with cellphones in planes is that they can see the tower, but the tower can't see them. So they punch the transmission power to 100%. Worse still, they can see not one but probably several dozen towers at the same time, trying to reach them all in hopes one of them can hear them.

    Now multiply that by 80 to 200 phones on a plane. This will not interfere with electronic guidance systems or computers in the plane, but will also never actually last for long enough on a cell to establish a connection, but all the requests will busy the tower. So cell towers get briefly radio jammed as the plane flies over them.

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  • [–] -3 points 4 months ago* (13 children)

    Commercial plane crashes are so unlikely: I'd happily take whatever the increase in risk is to not have safety briefings 😂

    but also, airplane mode isn't for the plane, it's for the cell phone towers... leaving your phone on non-airplane mode once in the air is basically ddosing all the towers in the area... so yeah you should use airplane mode unless there's a good reason not to such as a plane hijack... it'll also save you some phone battery...

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  • [–] -1 points 4 months ago (12 children)

    Wrong on all counts.

    You have no clue how little some people fly, and some may only fly a few times in a lifetime. The safety briefing is for them, not jaded geniuses that don’t count the seat rows to the nearest emergency exit.

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  • [–] -2 points 4 months ago (9 children)

    that's not what I'm saying, I'm saying even if you've never flown before your dying need the safety briefing because it's so unlikely 😂

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  • [–] 2 points 4 months ago* (2 children)

    Interestingly, statistics reveal that over 95 percent of passengers involved in a plane crash survive, underscoring the importance of preparation and awareness in ensuring safety during flights.

    https://www.ebsco.com/research-starters/engineering/plane-crash-survival

    Wrong again, genius. You need to stop, now.

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  • [–] 2 points 4 months ago* (5 children)

    Survivorship bias. “We have been doing this safety thing forever, but nothing bad ever happens. Let's stop doing the safety thing!“

    See also, “why pay for firefighters if there's so few fire incidents in our city?”, and also “I've never been in a car crash, no need to use a seat belt.”

    Every regulation is written in blood.

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  • [–] -2 points 4 months ago (1 child)

    the safety briefing doesn't effect the probability of a crash...

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  • [–] 2 points 4 months ago*

    Exactly, it's not there for the unforseen improbable plane crash. It's there for the moments people statistically actually die a preventable death, as in fucking up and misbehaving during evacuations, stampeding others to death or dying of asphyxia because they were too stupid to listen to the flight crew.

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  • [–] -2 points 4 months ago* (last edited 4 months ago) (2 children)

    the probability of a fire is much higher and firefighters are underpaid, people need to care more about fires, and less about plane crashes...

    similarly: we need more air traffic controllers and they should be paid more...

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