When boarding a flight, you’re usually instructed to switch your mobile phone to aeroplane mode, and it’s common practice to stow away electronic devices during take-off or landing.
Kolin Jones, the CEO and founder of private jet charter company Amalfi Jets, has a theory on wy you have to make this adjustment to you phone which he shared in a TikTok video. He said: “So there’s a big secret that people in the aviation industry don’t want to tell you about.
“If you’re ever flying commercially and right before the airplane takes off, they tell you to put your phone in airplane mode, that’s not really, usually having anything to do with the avionics there in the cockpit.
“The reason that they make you do that is because it forces you to put your phone away. So in the event, you were to have an issue on takeoff and slam really hard on the brakes, your phone’s not going to go flying out of your hand and hit someone else next to you.
“Same thing with taking off your power outlets and putting computers away. It really has nothing to do with the avionics in the cockpit. It’s just so you don’t have something out in the event you need to evacuate really quickly people aren’t tripping over.”
Some commenters were rather sceptical of Kolin’s claims, with one writing: “That’s not true if you’re talking on the phone it can interfere with communication with the tower. That’s why they say to put it in airplane mode.”
Another added: “I was always told that no, airplane mode won’t do anything to the modern avionics but when all idk 300+ phones were on using data, it could interfere with the older avionics.”
While a third said: “Logic isn’t sound. I put mine on airplane mode and then play games that don’t require Internet.”