FAA to permit electronic devices during all flight phases
 

It's never really been about the devices themselves. It's about getting the end user to look up and pay attention to the safety demo. To see what happens when people ignore the safety demo then go into YouTube and see the "Hudson" evacuation. Count how many life jackets were inflated before the idiot left the cabin for a start. Then count the idiots jumping off a perfectly good floating wing into the icy waters only to get a brainwave and clamber back on.

One minute taken to listen to the safety brief and look around for your nearest exit shouldn't be that hard.

Oh great....................is nowhere safe from idiots wishing to constantly be it touch with other inane idiots on farcebook.......

In Very Loud Voice, X 120
 

WE JUST LANDED
WE'RE TAXIING IN
WE'RE AT THE GATE
PEOPLE ARE GETTING THEIR LUGGAGE OUT
I'M COMING UP THE RAMP
I DON'T SEE YOU YET

PLease God make me rich so I can have a Citation-X

Interesting that the good old UK CAA only last week pushed out a(nother) reminder that the use of portable electronic equipment should be switched off during take-off and landing as per the same regs they've had in force for what seems like ages.

Ever responsive to change (:=) I wonder how long it will take the Belgrano to turn around policy?

Many years I hope.

It was the inability of the phone tower system to keep track and invoice the "ultra-fast" moving mobile phones that brought about the claims that phones effect aircraft safety etc. The WW2 John Cunningham carrots at night propaganda is still working today.

Down her, until now it's been illegal to block mobile phone calls (on the ground), but the law has just been changed to allow a trial of blocking in prisons. This led to a discussion on radio of mobile phones in aircraft. Most people were happy with the ban and would like to see it enforced, but a couple of pilots rang in admitting that they always left theirs on.

I can see it's important for pax to be attentive during the demo, but I'd like to think that the crew is as well.

So, pre cell phones everybody listened attentively to the safety demonstrations and all evacuations were performed without a hitch and with the greatest expertise? Please, some people will always neglect those briefings just as some will always pay attention. I totally agree that having access to distracting devices is, well, distracting during those demonstrations, but what about books, magazines or just conversations with the fella next to you? Why not put the safety folder on the seat in front of the pax so that they always see it? Subconsciously drilling what to do when the **** hits the fan.

I hate being exposed to constant conversations that sometimes should be done privately just as much as the next one, but that´s how our society looks like now. Earplugs, headphones with audiobook or music usually work for me. At least in airplanes one usually isn´t exposed to flocks of kids with boom boxes. Come to think of it, I think I prefer boom boxes over the current trend of holding up a cell phone and playing music with horrendous speaker quality. :=

The FAA are to be applauded for moving ahead with this relaxation. I do not have problem with electronic non-transmitting devices nor those that operate quietly. However, my airline says that these things shall turned off whenever the seat belt sign is turned on, so that's my company line and I stick with it. But the reasons for doing so are lost in the mists of time, if they ever existed in the first place. Some say it's to create an environment so you can get a person's full attention, others say it's so the passengers will listen to the (old fashioned and rather pointless) "Safety Briefing."

What the industry really needs is research into the modern person and how we should go about delivering some snippets of quite important information which may save their lives. It is patently clear that we are not doing a good job with real people when you look at clips of recent evacuations - Jet2 @ GLA, the Cactus in the Hudson, BA @ LHR, UTair @ VKO etc... This is not the result of mobile phones, tablets or laptops - just poor and/or irrelevant message delivery and dreadful handling of passengers goods following an incident.

As an industry we can and should do better.

It was almost worth taking a flight just to get some respite from the bl**dy things, now even that safe haven is being taken away from us.

maybe they find the footage on mobile phones useful when investigating an incident:ok:

Something to note from reading the article is they're not relaxing the rules on using any form of radio, i.e. people still won't be allowed to make mobile calls in the air and will need to put phones in flight mode etc, this is just about not having to actually power the devices off during takeoff and landing.

"Idiot"? :ugh:

A significant portion of the pax on the ET 767 in the comores inflated their lifevests in the cabin and perished as a result. No electronic devices around then. :ugh:

Serendipity...
 

While i think this is a step forward there will still be an issue around ensuring Wi-Fi and GSM is switched off on e-readers, tablets and laptops to meet the no transmitting requirement.

For GSM it should possible to put a femto cell or two in the aircraft, force the phones to low power transmission once ground signals are relatively weaker and send them text or cell broadcast messages to tell the owners to switch them to flight mode.

RT*A:

"Aircraft mode" isn't going anywhere yet.

Most pax already have electronic equipment that runs all the time and isn't switched off during take-off and landing. Does anyone still wear a wrist watch that isn't electronic? How many have watches that are GPS equiped? How do you turn one off?

Idiot? :eek: Well I don't know about US Airways, but I flew five United Airlines flights last week and I listened to the safety brief every time. Without exception in the context of a water landing the recorded brief played on the IFE / PA said "inflate your life jacket just BEFORE exiting the cabin". Maybe more folks listen to the safety brief than you think!

Most of these safety briefings can now be found on YouTube - I haven't been given/heard one that tells pax not to take their bags with them on evacuation.