An airline pilot has revealed why you’re told to switch off your phone before a flight and why it matters. Turning your smartphone onto airplane mode or switching it off entirely may seem like common practice to some on a flight but failing to do so could impact the journey in a way you might not be aware of.
TikTok creator PerchPoint, an airline pilot and US Army veteran with 13k followers, said forgetting to turn your phone off won’t cause the plane to fall out of the sky or even really mess with the systems on board but it is definitely noticeable from the cockpit.
He said an aircraft filled “with 70, 80, 150 people on board” with just three or four people on their phones trying to make a connection to a radio tower for an incoming phone call can send out radio waves.
He explained this caused a “potential” for those radio waves to interfere with the radio waves in a pilot’s headset. He gave an example of a recent flight when he had his headset on and was waiting to receive clearance for takeoff.
He said: “Once we got the plane turned around, we started to head towards the taxiway and I called the ground to get our clearance to which direction we had to go. And as soon as we started getting the directions, we started to get this really annoying buzz going through our headset and it kind of sounded like a mosquito in my ear.
“It’s not the end of the world but it’s definitely pretty annoying when you’re trying to copy down instructions and it sounds like a wasp or something flying around you.”
The clip has received 1.1m views and more than 100k likes. It also spurred more than 1,700 comments.
One person said: “You should say this ON the flight, to the passengers”.
Another wrote: “Meanwhile I’m the type of person who thinks if I forget to put it on Airplane mode y’all will know it’s me and it will be my fault we crash and burn.”
Someone else added: “Honestly thank you. I never understood this lol”.
Another asked how pilots know where the buzzing in headphones comes from. PerchPoint responded: “Our headphones don’t just buzz without interference, FA made an announcement about airplane mode & it wasn’t heard again; I’ve had it in the past as well.”