His incident made me laugh and also think about the ridiculousness of being asked/required to turn off my “electronic” devices during take-off.
That said, does use of a Kindle or similar media without a spinning hard drive really interfere with the operations of an airplane? If so, wouldn’t these items be either confiscated or banned? Also, wouldn’t the crew need to use some form of detector to insure that there were no such devices in use?
Alec Baldwin is very smart and/or has a fantastic PR team. Turning the incident from “rich/famous guy prima donna” into a joke is genius. Guising his defense as a joke in pointing out the ridiculousness of the regulations was simply a fantastic PR move. Defending himself in other venues (Twitter or traditional news outlets ) would not have worked nearly as well since now he can make the point AND claim “it was a joke!”
Thing about the kindle is, I am not sure you can turn it off. Sliding the switch just puts it into “sleep” mode. During sleep, it’s just as “on” as it is any other time. It’s just showing a pretty picture on the screen instead of a book or menu.
You can hold down the switch for fifteen seconds, come to think of it, and that does something other than sleep mode. But I think even that doesn’t power it down–I think it just resets the thing or something.
I can’t say for sure how much effect such devices have on the aircraft, if any. In my understanding, it’s pretty minimal if not negligible.
But, that isn’t really the point. You still have to follow the flight attendants’ instructions or you can land in trouble. Yes, this is true even if you’re a famous celebrity. I did think the skit was funny, but it actually reinforced the idea that Baldwin expects special treatment. Celebs can definitely get detached from reality in this way.
There was a prior thread about this and if I’m remembering correctly, the consensus was that there had been like, 3 unexplained crashes where their best guess was something about cell phones interfering. Ever since then, they’re banned. I may be misremembering though.
hmmm…
I must be alone then in thinking it was spectacularly unfunny. Not that I was angry or anything, I just thought it was dumb. Seemed forced and desperate.
I thought it wasn’t funny, and I usually think Baldwin is very funny. Yeah, I got his point and his arguments, but making a bunch of other people wait because you want to break rules that are stupid is self-indulgent and rude.
And see, when I first heard he was kicked off a plane, my thought was “well, of course, if he keeps trying to get into the cockpit because he played a pilot once”.
Then I learned it was for not turning off his kindle because he was playing some word game with friends. Now I can understand the annoyance of having to quit a game in the middle, but it’s still pretty douchey.
The skit was somewhat funny.
As I understand it, it’s not the harddrive that is the problem, it is communication devices that transmit. My cell phone has a “airplane mode”, for instance, where it won’t take incoming calls or connect to the net, but I can use the screen to play an internal game. So Kindle having a static screen should be fine, it’s the game he was playing online that caused the concern.
But when I fly, they usually make a point to say “Airplane mode isn’t enough. The device needs to be TURNED OFF!” Which always seems silly to me. I, for one, appreciate and respect Mr. Baldwin’s selfless act of civil disobedience.
As I recall, there was an older study that was inconclusive about the dangers of electronics interfering with avionics, so the FAA has erred on the conservative side.
The SNL piece didn’t amuse me at all. Stupid as the regulation may be, the airline has no discretion in whether to comply with it. If Baldwin or anyone else has a problem with that, they should take it up with the FAA, not the airline, and not bother inconveniencing a plane full of passengers for no good reason.
I wish SNL hadn’t given him a platform to continue his tantrum on national television in the form of a comedy bit. I assume they’ll extend the same courtesy to the airline, which had no choice in the matter?
The latest Ask the Pilot from Salon also adds that they want you paying attention in case shit starts going wrong (if you have music cranked you may not hear) and that they want to minimize the chance of any metal-and-glass flying projectiles zipping around the cabin should they have to make any sudden evasive maneuvers/hit surprise turbulence/hit some object during takeoff and landing.
I still think he comes off like a pretentious ass, but then that is the character he plays on 30 Rock and in the airline miles commercials he stars in, so how much is reality and how much is his persona?
I think much of the humor of the skit was that Baldwin was enough of a pretentious ass to pretend to be the pilot offering an apology. They certainly played that angle.
