What would you have done?

[ANOTHER ton?]

Derekl, you say you have technical expertise in this matter, but can I be so bold as to ask in which field? (Aircraft, RF or filling station?)

As an ex-aircraft engineer with 11 years experience, I know that it is possible that the phone signal can interfere with radio nav systems - this was demostrated on a B737-200 some years ago, when corrosion in an aerial connector led to some very strange ILS responses in sympathy with mobile phone use. This was proven after an extensive engineering investigation, so, although PERHAPS, NORMALLY it is not really an issue, when combined with another hidden defect , it had very real safety implications. In this case, the ILS indication and F/D bars gave erroneous deviations with no failure flags - the fault was only noticed during a visual approach when the VASI's were wildly out of kilter with the GS deviation. Three factors were required to even see the fault - Bad connector, visual approach, phone call being made, all at the same time. Luckily the crew were visual, had they been operating under CAT III conditions it would have been a lot harder to identify they even had a problem.

I was involved with the investigation, so this is first hand, not anecdotal..

I tend to agree that in 99.99% of flights it is a non-issue (and it is certainly not an explosion / fire risk), but in commercial aviation 99.99% is not good enough - especially if it is easy to achieve 100% simply by having phones off.

As for future phone usage on aircraft, Boeing and Airbus etc are working hard to provide this functionality, but by virtue of the time it is taking them to certify phone usage, you can see how seriously they take the issue.