As the holiday travel season continues, one pilot is stressing the importance of a smartphone’s airplane mode feature.
In a TikTok video that went viral and garnered more than a million views, a pilot using the username PerchPoint issued a “friendly PSA” for airline passengers.
“The airplane mode button on your phone is not a conspiracy,” the pilot said. “So if you forget to put your phone on airplane mode, no, it’s not the end of the world. The plane won’t fall out of the sky, and it won’t even mess with the systems on the plane. It does, however, have the ability to mess with the headphones.”
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Picture of two pilots in the cockpit of a modern passenger jet aircraft.
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The pilot explained that regardless of the number of passengers on the plane, if a phone tries to connect to a radio tower, the radio waves can interfere with the radio waves of the pilot’s headset.
He used an example from a recent flight experience where he said there was a “really annoying buzzing noise coming through the headset” as he tried to communicate with ground control to get clearance and tell him which direction to go.
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“It sounds like there’s a mosquito in my ear. Like I said, it’s not [the] end of the world, but it’s definitely pretty annoying when you’re trying to copy the instructions and it sounds like there’s just, like, a wasp flying around you or something,” the pilot said.
He captioned the video: “What more do you know yanno? #fyp #aviation.”
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Stock image of a person holding a phone in an airplane.
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His sentiments are echoed on the Federal Aviation Administration’s website, which notes that cell phones are prohibited for use in the air “because their signals could interfere with critical aviation instruments.”
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“Devices must be used in airplane mode or with the cellular connection turned off. You can use a WiFi connection on your device if the airplane has a WiFi system installed and the airline allows its use,” the website added.
Categories: Trends
Source: HIS Education