I had to dig around to find the source of the latest news that tries to answer this question. Many sites are echoing that some study somewhere has evidence but none of them provide a cite. Yes, I just used site and cite in the same sentence. Grammar alert. Carefully read this sentence in an article on The Huffington Post by Christine Negroni:

The IATA report is not public, someone slipped it to me after my Times story ran to much controversy in January.

Ouch. My reading instruments just threw an error message and blew up. She must have meant too much controversy, instead of “to”. Good thing a grammar error does not really crash our brains — we may now continue reading her article.

Her point is that she has some super secret hidden file that proves to her that we all should be turning off personal electronic devices because they might interfere with aircraft safety.

I have in my possession a new confidential report from the International Air Transport Association’s safety data sharing program (STEADS) that shows over the past seven years, airlines around the world reported seventy five events in which portable electronic devices (let’s just call them PEDs, okay?) are suspected of interfering with flight deck equipment. While phones were the source of interference in 40% of the reports, iPods, other MP3 players, laptops and portable games were also implicated.

Might as well throw pacemakers on that list. That is probably why it is confidential. They do not want to upset the pacemaker lobby. Or maybe the distraction from the portable electronics is related to pilots watching movies instead of the instruments?

All joking aside, however, this is not a good reason to tell people to turn off their portable electronics. Why? Because even if you tell everyone to turn off their device they will forget or fall asleep or not understand what to do. The devices also will malfunction. That is why placing bets for a safe flight on the passengers correctly following directions is foolish. Likewise, placing bets for a safe flight on the correct functioning of passenger-owned electronics is foolish. Neither are reliable enough, at present, to ensure safety of a flight — they are far from compliant.

That is why resilience is meant to have been built into aircraft, which she admits.

The use of PEDs on board will not – I repeat – will not cause a plane to go tumbling through the sky like something in a made-for-TV-disaster movie.

Fine, nothing causing worry. And then she turns around and subtly contradicts herself.

What PEDs can and in fact have already done, is create a distraction for the flight crew. When that distraction comes at the wrong time it can lead to pants-wetting episodes and maybe even disaster. And that is why boys and girls, devices are supposed to be turned off as in OFF, below 10 thousand feet. The concept is that with sufficient altitude below us there is time to address any pesky error messages that might wind up being transmitted to the cockpit. Only now we know that those messages are pretty darn common

Fear. Panic. I thought nothing causing worry?

It seems now to say: Above 10,000 feet there is time to recover but below 10,000 feet, well, a plane may tumble into the ground like something in a made-for-PED-disaster-movie.

At the end of the story comes the real kicker. Negroni is digging for reasons to regulate the behavior of her fellow passengers.

Regulators, schmegulators, they could take forever to act. In the meantime, is it unreasonable for a woman who spends a heck of a lot of time in airplanes to ask her fellow travelers, please, Please, PLEASE, cool it with the electronics below ten-thousand feet?

Perhaps the airlines should deputize her and others officially so when they stick a nose into your seat you can laugh at the shiny star that says “PED Police” as you reply “of course I want this plane to crash”. Maybe a deputy program could actually help convince a passenger or two to take the time and trouble to guarantee their device is disabled (“the Captain says you may now put your batteries back in”, but it really does not address the core problem. Regulators would be wise to put pressure to fix a system affected by interference rather than hope passengers will suddenly and reliably (heroically?) overcome the shortcomings of their own inexpensive portable electronics.

So what would you think if you were the B777 pilot who’s radio communication with air traffic control was interrupted by a passenger’s cell phone call?

I would think it’s time to get Boeing on the horn and rip them a new exhaust hole and/or invest in an Airbus.

Funny that she mentions a B777. I have seen speculation that a B777-236 ER, G-YMMM crashed in 2008 because of cell phone interference. The actual Air Accidents Investigation report, which is not confidential, points only to a problem in the fuel system.

Restrictions in the fuel system between the aircraft fuel tanks and each of the engine HP pumps, resulting in reduced fuel flows, is suspected.

I searched all the other AAIB reports and found no mention of portable electronics as a cause of interference. Hopefully the IATA report will be released or at least discussed more transparently. While we can assume some older fleets with lack of maintenance in deprecated electronics could have interference issues, the solution is a rapid patch/upgrade to those systems.

Regulate the lack of resilience to interference to force airline behavior changes and don’t expect passengers to be perfect, especially if fear is based on secret memos seen by airlines that can’t be discussed in public.