Anyone who often travels by plane knows the procedure. Lift your seats, fasten your seatbelt and activate flight mode. But what's the deal with the latter? And what happens if you forget to switch your phone to flight mode?

Flight mode: Why it must be activated

The thorough safety precautions in aircrafts aren't there for fun! Behind every safety measure is a well though out concept. This is also the case with flight mode, which people tend to forget about, even though the on-board personnel clearly indicate that this function should be activated. Most passengers are afraid that the plane could crash if flight mode is not activated. Well, it's not that bad!

If the mobile phone is not in flight mode or switched off, then in extreme cases there can be interference noise. As a passenger, you don't notice it, but the pilot does. You can compare this to the noise produced by a loudspeaker when a mobile phone comes too close to it. In the case of the pilot, he could then no longer understand important radio signals properly, which in turn can have consequences.

Unlikely but not impossible

Thanks to modern technologies, interference with the radio signal is not necessarily likely. But it cannot be ruled out either. To ensure the highest possible safety of all people in the aircraft, the flight mode should always be activated. Another risk factor is the landing approach. Mobile phone radiation could interfere with the radio waves of the on-board communication system. This is because when all passengers switch on their phones at the same time, the respective mobile phones search for their providers and radio masts.

It is also advantageous for you to activate the offline mode, because you will not have any reception in the air anyway. This way you save power and do not run the risk of consuming unnecessary data.