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This is why keeping your phone on won’t fly.
A pilot is going viral after answering a question that’s on every passenger’s mind — why do we need to toggle our smartphones to airplane mode before takeoff? He broke down why this precaution is so important in a video PSA with over 2 million views on TikTok.
“The airplane mode button on your phone is not a conspiracy,” declared the pilot, who goes by @perchpoint on the platform, in the footage.
The aviator began the video by reassuring viewers that forgetting this protocol “won’t cause the plane to “fall out of the sky” or even really “mess with the systems on board.”
However, if too many flyers forgo this step, it can inadvertently monkey with the pilots’ radio communications with the control tower, per the clip.
“If you have an aircraft with 70, 80, 150 people on board, and even three or four people’s phones start to try to make a connection to a radio tower for an incoming phone call, it sends out radio waves,” the captain explained. “There’s the potential that those radio waves can interfere with the radio waves of the headset that the pilots are using.”
He recalled a recent flight where he was using his headset to get “clearance on which way to go” and the message interference made it feel like there was a “mosquito” in his ear.
“It’s definitely not the end of the world but it’s pretty annoying when you’re trying to copy down instructions and it sounds like there’s a wasp or something flying around,” the TikTokker declared. “So if you’re ever curious why you’ve got to put on airplane mode, that’s why.”
In fact, US law requires that passengers switch their phones to airplane mode while flying.
“Cellular telephones installed in or carried aboard airplanes, balloons or any other type of aircraft must not be operated while such aircraft are airborne (not touching the ground),” reads the code of federal regulations. “When any aircraft leaves the ground, all cellular telephones on board that aircraft must be turned off.”
