Okay, I’m sure this must have been asked before, but a search through the forums yielded, well…not much…
Cell phones, I understand…but…why do you have to turn off ALL items with an on/off switch below 10,000 feet during a flight? How exactly can, say, a digital camera or iPod interfere with equipment??
And for that matter, why don’t they ask people with laptops to disable their wireless adapters??
First of all, people with laptops are supposed to disable WiFi in flight.
The rational for putting away all electronics during takeoff and landing is that they are distracting - this is when accidents are most likely to occur (like say, getting KO’d by some geese), and they want the passengers to be able to pay attention to any announcements.
Related question: right after the plane lands, they’ll usually say you can use your cell phone but all other electronics must remain off. Why is this? Clearly there’s no chance of interference if they’re letting you use cell phones, but why no other electronics? Is it the chance of distraction again?
BrandonR – to be honest with you, I’ve never heard them say “all other electronics must remain off” – what airline??
beowulff – Okay, I can dig that response, but…at least on Continental, not been using the blanket “if it has an on/off switch, turn it off” – that’s a fairly recent thing that I’ve only heard in the past two or three years. Case in point: probably around 2002 or 2003, someone asked if he needed to turn off his iPod during the descent because it wasn’t in the literature as approved or unapproved below that altitude, and the flight attended said, “Hmm…you know what? I really don’t know – those are too new for us to be sure! Tell ya what – go ahead and keep it on if you want, but if we think it’s causing problems, we’ll let you know.” Didn’t cause any problems.
(And I must admit – there were times when my wife or I would take video of the landing on a digital camera…shhhhh, don’t tell anyone. 
)
American Airlines. I’m probably 75% sure they say this, because every time they say it I wonder “why” to myself. If any frequent fliers can confirm/deny this, that would be great.
Frequent American Airlines flier. Yup, they say that often.
Books and Aamerican Way distract, so I don’t know that distraction during take offs and landings has to do with the prohibition against electronics.
Books don’t stop you hearing safety announcements, though. An iPod blasting in your ears possibly might.
Anything that uses electricity is a potential source of interference. Just because it isn’t labeled as a radio transmitter, doesn’t mean that it doesn’t produce electromagnetic radiation. Devices with digital circuits, which includes almost everything these days, can produce significant amounts of RF interference if they are not designed properly. This is especially true with consumer electronics, where manufacturers are usually much more interested in cutting costs than in spending money on shielding and filtering their device.
True to a point – any electronic device can emit em interference. But it’s not going to mess up an airplane. This is one of those ideas that sounds plausible enough that it must be true.
Laptop prohibitions during takeoff and landing are there because in the event of an emergency a 5 pound laptop can fly around the cabin and bean someone. Other things might be a distraction, etc.
The radio interference thing is silly-- it’s hardly enforced and given the millions of cellphones turned on while flying/landing/taking off every day, we’d have seen an accident it it were really an issue.
EDIT: And I just remembered one of my favorite reads, who has addressed this very issue: Ask the Pilot
The issue has been exhaustively debated in past threads, and I’m not a fan of horse purée.
If it was really a Bad Thing to have electronics on, they’d confiscate them during flight, or not allow them in your hand luggage.
It’s also like mobile phones at petrol stations. They cannot cause gas tanks to explode.
Given that portable electronics have been around for over 30 years now, I would have thought the Aerospace industry would have made allowances for that sort of thing in their aircraft…
Unless you’re on a plane with a WiFi access point.
The big thing I can think of is that they might be trying to minimize the clutter of gadgets amongst the passengers that could slow the debarking of the passengers from the plane. A phone you can just put in your pocket or keep in your hand, but with every iPod, laptop, and battery powered alarm clock you pull out of your bags, that’s one more thing for you (and potentially everybody else) on the plane to fuss with while people try to get off the plane.
But this is just a WAG on my part. IANA Frequent Flyer.