Originally Posted by
k3lvc
I'm used to the vagueries of different airlines policies on use of electronic devices during take off/landing but yesterdays Flybe flight into CDG came up with a new one on me.
Cabin crew announcement that due to poor visibility we would be landing using the ILS and under European rules this meant that all handheld electronic devices must be switched off (not just flightsafe mode) - cabin crew then proceed down cabin asking to see all devices and ensure they're fully switched off.
Is there such a 'rule' that's newly established
Which aircraft was it? If it was an autoland then yes that’s normal procedures to properly turn phones etc off. Assuming it’s a Dash, not 100% they can autoland, sure someone will correct me but for the Embraer that would likely have been it.
Could also be for a Cat II approach to a manual landing (again, not Flybe or Dash 8 but some airlines will manually land off a Cat II approach). Pretty much anything beyond a normal Cat I approach will require these procedures; in the same way that the airfield itself has to have its ILS area properly protected and LVP Ops in force.
I suspect the cabin crew just said ILS because that’s what they got told, every landing pretty much is a Cat I ILS so it won’t just have been for that, it’ll have been for something more precise.