Study Says Cell Phones Can Interfere With Planes

3x37 writes "The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette website reports a study by Cargenie Mellon University researchers found that cell phones do interfere with airplane cockpit instruments. The researchers came to this takeaway conclusion: "devices like cell phones 'will, in all likelihood, someday cause an accident by interfering with critical cockpit instruments such as GPS receivers.'""

Comments

Good!

[xTMFWahoo]

All I need when I'm trying to sleep on my flight is some yahoo yelling on his/her cell phone. I think people can spend just a few hours away from thier cell.

Hmmm...

[PrinceAshitaka]

I would really like to actually see this study. The researchers go so far as to say that in the future a crash will be caused by some portable electronics. There must be a way to engineer around this. They not only name cells as a culprit but also laptops and other electronics. How much EM radiation do these devices really produce? It can't be that much. How sensitive are these GPS systems in the planes. Is the GPS system the only affected system? By how much is the GPS system affected. Does it show an error of a dozen meters of a dozen kilometers or does it simply not work at all? To a certain point I understand banning cell phones, but other electronic devices?

Re:Hmmm...

[Mark Programmer]

According to Carnegie Mellon's alumni page (http://www.epp.cmu.edu/httpdocs/people/alumni.htm l), G. William Strauss's graduate thesis was "Portable electronic devices onboard commercial aircraft: Assessing the risks." Published 2005.

Any CMU students willing to use their library access and a photocopier for the expansion of human knowledge before the IEEE article is published in March?

Re:Hmmm...

[Devynn]

I've got my private and instrument pilot's license. At one point during my instrument license training I had my cell phone with me and recevied a call because I didn't shut it off. When the call started ringing, my instruments I would use for landing in Instrument Meterological Conditions began to behave erradicly. Granted, my phone was in my pocket and in close proximity to the instruments but still, they can cause interference. I'm not sure how much interference someone's cell in the back of the plane is going to cause, but if enough people are on them, I can see issues arising.

Re:Hmmm...

[digitalchinky]

Aircraft electronics are sturdy, my cellphone has a GPS built in and they coexist perfectly fine. The primary reason for the cellphone ban is because it screws up the cellular network on the ground - not the aircraft electronics. GSM networks (or whatever you have in your country) were designed to deal with a phone that is visible across a limited number of cell sites, not across entire states.

Lightning has right of way in most cases, usually protection systems are built into the airframe, not specifically the electronics - all the good stuff is tempested anyway.

This whole subject falls in to the 'nothing to see here' category.

People have to die first.

[Rob T Firefly]

Unortunately, the same self-important gadget love that has people driving one-handed while juggling a phone with the other ensures that nobody will ever pay much attention to the cell phone ban until an actual plane crash happens, and is conclusively proven to have been caused by someone's phone.

Sad, really.

Re:Cargenie Mellon?

[Intron]

Obviously a typo. It should be referring to the Cargenie Melon, a tropical fruit first imported to this country for the Great Pittsburgh Exhibition of 1899. It escaped into the steam tunnels of a nearby university where it has been flourishing ever since.