Are Airline Passengers Spoiled Brats?
“What God hath wrought,” the first telegraph message ever sent by its inventorSamuel F.B. Morse, needs to be re-phrased – “What Steve Jobs hath wrought,” Dr. Vernon L. Grose said in an interview yesterday on CTV’s flagship show, Canada AM.
Job’s iPad has revolutionized communication. Everyone seems to be captured by the ubiquitous iPad – to the point that they cannot stop using it. “I wonder if they even take it into the shower with them,” Grose, a former NTSB Member, mused.
The latest iPad fuss occurred when American Airlines announced that they are going to use iPads instead of paper flight manuals in the cockpit -- even during takeoff and landing. But passengers still must shut down everything electronic from the moment a plane leaves the gate until it reaches an altitude of 10,000 feet.
That revelation blew the fuse of many iPad users who feel they must never be told to stop using those magic devices. They act like children who’ve been denied candy before dinner.
“We are in a three-way collision between technology, personal liberty, and risk,” said Grose—author of best-selling MANAGING RISK: Systematic Loss Prevention for Executives.
Airliners may look like nothing more than great big metal machines, but they are quite electronic – even being described as “fly-by-wire.” iPads definitely emit signals that can unintentionally affect aircraft communications, navigation, flight control and electronic equipment. Why would passengers deliberately risk their – and everyone else’s – lives so selfishly?
As technology continues to produce communication marvels, iPad entrancement may give way to even more devices with potential interference with aircraft performance. Enforcing a ban on their use aboard flights is virtually impossible today anyhow – given that people are very clever at hiding them.
This battle between personal liberty and community safety goes well beyond airline travel, as demonstrated by this week’s call by the NTSB for banning cell phones and texting devices in all automobiles.