Mobile phones have become an integral part of modern existence, allowing us to call or text people from anywhere. Or rather: of almost everywhere. Every time we board a flight, we hear someone ask (almost wishfully): “Can you use your phone on a plane??”
No, you can’t, making a flight one of the few places where federal regulations prohibit you from using your device — or more accurately, your device’s ability to connect to a phone company’s cellular network for voice and data.
Using a cell phone to connect to a cellular network while on board a U.S. aircraft has been banned by not one but two different organizations within the U.S. government.
Federal Aviation Administration Restrictions
The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA), the governing body responsible for ensuring the safety of civil aviation in the United States, has banned cell phone calls and the use of cell phones installed on U.S. airline aircraft.
This ban is not arbitrary; it is rooted in critical security concerns.
Modern aircraft are equipped with sensitive navigation and communication systems, which rely on radio signals to function properly. These aircraft systems, essential for safe flight, include navigation equipment and communications systems that connect to ground stations and satellites.
Any interference, even from seemingly harmless devices such as cell phones, can potentially disrupt these crucial aircraft instruments and compromise the safety of flight. While no one has officially or definitively linked cell phone use to a plane crash, we encourage you to listen to the FAA on the matter.
In 2013, the FAA softened its position slightly, allowing the use of mobile devices in airplane mode.
Airplane mode, a feature on most cell phones and other portable electronic devices, disables cellular connectivity while leaving other features such as Wi-Fi and Bluetooth operational. When you put your device in airplane mode, you disable the cellular connection, which reduces the risk of interference with the aircraft’s systems.
Although the FAA ban on cell phone calls is specific to the United States, similar rules apply in many other countries. These restrictions are based on the recommendations of aviation experts and regulatory authorities who recognize the potential for interference with navigation systems and radio signals.
Ban by the Federal Communications Commission
The Federal Communications Commission (FCC), which oversees cell phones, banned airline passengers from making in-flight phone calls in 1991, fearing that these signals would disrupt communications networks on the ground.
The FCC restriction is still in effect, although the FCC recently considered a proposal to allow a technology that would allow passengers to make cell phone calls without causing interference. It ultimately rejected the proposal in November 2020.
Flight attendants play a critical role in ensuring compliance with both FAA and FCC regulations. They remind passengers to put their personal electronic devices in flight mode before takeoff and monitor the cabin throughout the flight to enforce the rules.
Research into the safety of telephone use during flights
Is it really necessary to ban the use of mobile phones on airline flights? Researchers concluded in the mid-2000s that cellphones had the potential to disrupt critical electronics on airplanes, although they could not find a single case where this had caused an accident.
Sven Bilén, a professor of engineering design, electrical and aerospace engineering at Penn State University, says phones are not as big a security problem as they once might have been.
“Most airplanes today are hardened,” explains Bilén, who wrote an article for The Conversation in 2018 about cell phones on board airplanes. “There is always the possibility of a negative interaction, but it is essentially a risk that the companies have tried to mitigate by hardening their electronics, by putting shielding around them.”
Hardening or shielding means surrounding the aircraft’s electronics (such as the navigation or communications system) with electrically conductive material to prevent electromagnetic interference from computers and cell phones.
There’s pretty good evidence that such protection works, because as Bilén points out, there are probably plenty of passengers who don’t turn off their phones’ cellular connections, sometimes unintentionally, even after the flight attendants remind them before takeoff.
“If there were major problems, we would see planes falling from the sky,” Bilén says.
But that doesn’t mean you can just ignore the ban.
Mobile phones and ground networks
“We are not aware of any technology that would allow flight crews to identify someone attempting to make a cell phone call during flight,” an FAA representative explained to us via email.
That said, if you try to make a phone call, there’s a good chance you’ll be caught, as “cabin crew or other passengers can likely tell if a passenger is talking on a cell phone while an aircraft is in the air,” according to the representative. added.
According to Bilén, the potential for mobile phones to disrupt ground networks is probably a bigger potential problem today. A group of people making calls while moving quickly through the air could theoretically ping cell towers anywhere, straining the cellular system’s ability to process the calls and pass them on to the next cell in the network.
In practice, at a normal cruising altitude of 36,000 feet (11 kilometers), “if you have your cell connection in the air, you’re probably not going to get cell towers,” Bilén says. “The cell towers don’t expect there to be traffic in the air, so their radiation patterns are focused on the ground.”
It is likely only when planes descend to less than 10,000 feet (3 kilometers), as they get closer to landing, that passengers can turn on their cell phones, connect and cause interference.
Interestingly, a 2017 survey from travel insurer Allianz Global Assistance found that 55.5 percent of Americans would be interested in the ability to make free cell phone calls throughout the flight. Reasons given included making emergency calls, staying connected with friends and family, coordinating pick-ups at their destination, and staying connected to work.
How onboard cell phone service works
So why is it that some aircraft offer mobile services on board? There is a technology that allows passengers to make phone calls without the risk of disrupting the aircraft’s electronics or the ground network.
As Bilén explains in his article, picocells – essentially a miniature, energy-efficient cell tower installed in the aircraft – allow phone calls to be transmitted over the aircraft’s Internet connection.
Since the beginning of 2010, Virgin Atlantic, a British airline, has been offering mobile services on board using this technology. But cell service is stopped once a plane is within 250 miles (402 kilometers) of the U.S. border.
Objections to the use of mobile phones during the flight
Even if it’s technologically feasible, don’t expect to be able to make cell phone calls on a US airline flight anytime soon.
The FCC spent seven years considering a rule change that would have allowed cell phone use on flights, but ultimately abandoned the idea. This was after it faced stiff opposition from a wide range of groups, ranging from flight attendants and machinists to aerospace workers and federal law enforcement officials.
One concern was that terrorists could use cellphones to detonate explosives. Another criticism was that if passengers held cell phones to their ears, they might not hear important safety instructions from the flight crew.
Others objected because they saw passengers talking on cellphones as an annoyance in the cramped confines of a plane, where people might be trying to read, sleep or talk to a travel partner.
Bilén, who says he uses airplane flights to respond to his emails, agrees with that view. “The whole idea of someone yapping next to you would drive me crazy,” he says.
We updated this article using AI technology, then made sure it was fact-checked and edited by a HowStuffWorks editor.
Original article: Can you use your phone on a plane? Moreover: Do you have to?
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