‘I’m a pilot and this is one thing you have to do with your phone on a flight’

An airline pilot shared a warning for anyone considering using a mobile phone during a flight. The pilot, who goes by @perchpoint on social media, urged passengers to listen when they instruct people to turn on ‘Airplane Mode’ on their phones.

In a video uploaded to TikTok earlier this month, @perhpoint explained that the phone function is “not a conspiracy” but that there’s a really important reason all phones need to have it on during flights. He said that if you accidentally forget to switch on Airplane mode, it’s not the end of the world, but that it is essential for making sure the plane functions correctly.

He said: “It’s not the end of the world, no, the plane won’t fall out of the sky, and it won’t even mess with the systems on board. However, it does have the potential to mess with the headsets.”

The pilot explained that if a few people forget to turn on Airplane mode, or they refuse to, and phones attempt to make a connection to a radio tower or receive an incoming phone call, it sends out radio waves interrupting the connection with the plane’s headsets. He said there is the possibility that the radio waves can interfere with the communication systems used by the pilots.

He continued: “Last night in San Francisco, we had pushed off the gate, we were talking to the rampers, we disconnected from the tug, we started the engines. And then once we got the plane turned around, we started heading towards the taxiways, we called off ground to get our clearance to which direction we had to go.

“And as soon as we started getting directions, there’s like this really annoying buzz going through the headsets, and it kind of sounds like there’s a mosquito in my ear. I get that it’s not the end of the world, but it’s