Disconnected

With more than 28,000 commercial flights in the skies over the United States every day, there are probably few sentences in the English language that are spoken more often and insistently than this: “Please turn off all electronic devices.”

Asking why passengers must turn off their mobile phones on airplanes seems like an odd question. Because! With a sentence said so often there simply must be a reason for it. Or — is there not?

Flight attendants are required to make their preflight safety announcement by the Federal Communications Commission because of “potential interference to the aircraft’s navigation and communication systems.” Perhaps this seems like a no-brainer: turning off your cellphone inside a piece of technology as sensitive as an airplane. In our civilized times, there are only a few things imaginable which more likely lead to direct physical conflict with the person in the seat next to you than turning on your cellphone during takeoff and nonchalantly calling your hairdresser to reschedule that appointment next Wednesday. In Great Britain, a 28-year-old oil worker was sentenced to 12 months in prison in 1999 for refusing to switch off his cellphone on a flight from Madrid to Manchester. He was convicted of “recklessly and negligently endangering” an aircraft.