Should cell phones be allowed on airplanes - Essay Example

Over the years, researchers have tried numerous instances to check for how flights are affected by the use of wireless equipments on board. In the year 1996, a study was conducted RTCA Inc. and was commissioned by the U.S. Federal Aviation Administration to study which of the equipments on board were affected by the use of cell phones or wireless phones (Auerbach, 1999). Although a great attempt had been made, and thousands of flight records had been checked, there were no instances where the cell phones or wireless phones had caused an issue with the equipments onboard. RTCA Inc. is a non profit organisation which deals with the industry standards for electronics on the airplanes.

The head of the study, John Sheehan, commented saying, ‘The airlines are misleading the travelling public. There is no real connection between cell-phone frequencies and the frequencies of the navigation’ (Auerbach, 1999). This conclusion was reached after Boeing Co. and Airbus Industries had tried to use cell phones on board the flight and there were no issues found. The explanation for this only brought out the fact that, the frequencies used cell phones was entirely different from the ones used by the airplane systems.

The use of cell phones has been banned by the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) and not the FAA. This rule was passed in 1991, when the FCC, felt the need to be concerned about the possible interference of the cell phones with the ground to ground cellular transmission. This law was introduced by the FCC, when they had a joint jurisdiction with the FAA for the setting the regulations of use of wireless equipments on aircrafts. In 1989, the FAA sent out a letter to the FCC to warn them of the dangers of using cell phones on board a flight.

The FAA believed that using a cell phone, both in air or on ground was equally dangerous and had significant risk to the