Dangerous Gadgets

Last week I was on a AirFrance-KLM flight happily listening to Within Temptation on my iPod when the whole blabla about electronic equipment was announced as usual. And of course I was instructed to switch off the iPod as it might interfere with the sensitive electronics of the airplane... Sigh.

After so many years, after so many millions of people that were transported with active gaming devices, laptops, cell phones and whatever not one single plane crashed because of that. I can imagine that in the very early days of the GSM airlines and safety regulators were cautious. But that was more then a decade ago - almost 2 it must be by now! Have they still not figured out that it is impossible to overtake the controls of a Boeing with a PSP? That it is only in SF movies that you can override the computer system of an advanced alien society with a laptop?

Or turn it around. You are a baddie and you want to crash a plane. Bummer: security! Can not get any explosives on board. What to do? Think think think. Suddenly you got it, you buy a gameboy at the airport and a cell phone you already had that. Security could not care less and you enter the plane with your deadly devices. You go to your seat and secretely you switch on both. But you keep them in your pocket. Nobody can see the toys of death! And when after a while the plane is on the runway speeding you simultanously press the dial button on your cell phone and the A button on the gameboy: BOOOOM!

Stupid story right? So then why the *beep* are we subjected to those stupid instructions concerning turning off electronic equipment?