It’s not what we thought

Air travelling requires us to turn our devices off or activate flight mode because of electromagnetic interference from our phones and tablets.

But do we actually know why?

Well thanks to a pilot (@perchpoint on TikTok) who is going viral for explaining why airplane mode is a thing, we now do.

Let’s first get the extreme theories out of the way in that the plane will not suddenly crash if someone was to turn airplane mode off. Nor will it mess with the plane’s operating systems.

But, as the pilot explains, it can interfere with something pretty important which is the radio communications between the pilots and the control tower.

PerchPoint has served in the US Army and has also been a professional flyer since 2019 before advancing to a pilot two years ago. He has since been spreading news and uncommon facts on TikTok to which his recent video PSA has reached over 2 million views on the video-sharing platform.

“The airplane mode button on your phone is not a conspiracy,” said the pilot in the TikTok.

However, if too many flyers forgo this step, it can clash with the radio waves used by the pilots’ 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,” the captain explained.

“There’s the potential that those radio waves can interfere with the radio waves of the headset that the pilots are using.”

The TikToker shared an example where his headset picked up interference while he was getting ‘clearance on which way to go’. He described it as sounding like there was a ‘mosquito’ in his ear, making it hard to hear instructions.

Gary Lopater/ Unsplash

“It’s definitely 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 a wasp or something flying around,” the pilot declared.

But a lot of other factors come into play as well.

“It depends on things like the phone provider, location of the plane, the phone actively trying to make or receive a phone call, and where the passenger is sitting,” he added. The closer a passenger is sitting to the cockpit, the higher the chance of interference.

“Many flights happen per day, with thousands of passengers, they just wanna mitigate the chances of interference with airplane mode with as many passengers.”

Now you know, next time you’re asked to toggle that airplane mode button, you know it’s not just a random rule.