In a viral “friendly PSA” on TikTok, a pilot shares what can happen if just three or four people’s phones try to receive an incoming phone call.
Have you ever wondered why travelers are asked to put their phones on airplane mode while flying and what happens if they don't?
One pilot's viral PSA has revealed the answer.
"The airplane mode button on your phone is not a conspiracy," a U.S. airline pilot and Army veteran who goes by @perchpoint on TikTok said in his message, which had been viewed nearly 100,000 times as of Wednesday.
The pilot went on to say while forgetting to turn phones on airplane mode isn't "the end of the world" and "the plane will not fall out of the sky," it does "have the potential to mess with the headsets."
"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," he said. "There's potential that those radio waves can interfere with the radio waves of the headsets that the pilots are using."
He went on to detail a recent flight in which he said he was trying to communicate with ground for clearance before takeoff when a sound he believes had to do with phone interference interrupted his communication.
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"As soon as we start getting the directions, there's like this really annoying buzz going through the headset and it kind of sounds like there's a mosquito in my ear," he said. "Like I said, it's 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 just like a wasp or something flying around you."
Commenters thanked the pilot for sharing the insight, with some suggesting such PSAs be made on the aircraft.
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"I think y’all should normalize getting on speaker and saying exactly this," one user wrote.
