The seat belt sign goes on, folks are told to fasten their seat belt, but are free to roam the cabin and use the lavatory. What's worse, a passenger floating during turbulence or a cell phone turned on?
Good point! It never fails to amaze me on American flights how little regard is paid to pax signs, and carry-ons (even in the past year). The cabin crew just seem to let these things float on through, as do the gate agents w.r.t. carry-ons. It's no wonder they have problems when they do try to enforce something like cell phone use.
Now, I have never read about an autopilot being affected by a cell phone, but it has been proven that they can affect things like localizers and GPS. Will playing tetris cause problems? Don't know, but what if a call comes in whilst playing (since the phone is on). This can (and has) had some serious repurcussions to flights. In an older model of the CRJ this could (and on several occasions did) cause a false "smoke cargo" message, which in turn necessitates an immediate landing and death by halon to any livestock in the hold.
"People are stupid" quoth Elliot Moose to anybody who will listen, and you have to treat them like mentally challenged 4 year olds as soon as they park their carcasses inside an aircraft. The rules must be set, set out clearly, set out clearly a second time (with pictures and four part harmony) and enforced at all times to be of any use at all. If you don't want them to go to the potty for the last 30 min of the flight (even if a mentally challenged four year old did invent that rule in a fit of rage over who stole the last cookie) you have to warn and warn again and finally stand up and say "does anybody need to go tinkles because this is your last chance for 30 min?". But you also need to enforce all the other rules with the same gusto, or they just won't take you seriously anyways.
That said, I firmly agree that the dolt in question got what he deserved, and we should all be trying to make sure his sentence is sent out as a warning to the rest of those who are contentedly cud chewing back in cattle class(don't even get me started on first class)
