France's Interior Minister Brice Hortefeux says that one of the two parcel bombs intercepted last week after being sent from Yemen was defused 17 minutes before it was due to go off.
Yep, these explosives experts who say a phone wouldn't be used as a timer might want to backpedal and revise their stories. Plus, as we know from the movies, the bomb always has a big display with a countdown timer, right?
Still, the possibility of using a phone inflight to remotely activate a bomb is being reconsidered:
Aircraft bomb finds may spell end for in-flight Wi-Fi - tech - 02 November 2010 - New Scientist
As the story points out, getting the phone to ring for a call or text is enough for the bad guys to start a detonation.