Now imagine a fine day taking off and then hitting a flock of migrating geese and having a double engine failure. Pretty slim chances I know but lets say it happens and it is followed by an immediate decision to ditch in a nearby river... You only have time to give the briefest of warnings to pax and crew before ditching the aircraft. Sound familiar yet?
Now lets say some dude was there exhausted after a night at work and then a race to the airport to catch said flight. He puts on some nice relaxing head-banging music on the ipod and closes his eyes. He doesn't hear the cabin announcement or see the commotion and is only aware of the situation at the very end and doesn't get to brace or prepare properly and suffers severe whiplash and a spinal injury but survives the ditching.
Now he can legitimately whine to his lawyer and claim the airline didn't adequately prepare him and did not require him to be paying attention and therefore can he file a lawsuit since he now has a lifelong injury to deal with?
Won't happen? I won't hold my breath...
Interference issues aside (and for the record, I also believe I have had anomalies that can be attributed to mobile phones), passengers often seem to forget that one of the reasons for the policy is so that emergency situations can be communicated and get through their thick skull without having to play competition with the ipod/ipad/tablet/computer etc. during critical phases of flight.
Nice one USA...
