The Perils of In-flight Cell Phone Use

The people in Texas certainly know how to arrest people. A rule's a rule, though, right?

A guy on a flight from Phoenix to El Paso did nothing more than disobey orders to get himself arrested. What did he do? Did he relieve himself, as Gerard Depardieu did recently? Did he try to open the exit door and jump out? Did he assault someone else onboard?

No, this guy just turned on his cell phone before it was time. Oh, and he got a tiny bit bent out of shape out of it.

But see, this is a serious offense. If everybody did this while the plane was flying, they'd create all kinds of havoc with the plane's navigational systems. That's why we have those fancy in-flight phones that charge you $900 a minute to use — they're specifically designed not to interfere with flight systems.

This guy wasn't using that in-flight phone. No, he had his phone and he was going to use it. And he wasn't going to let flight staff get in his way.

Now, most people would understand the need to keep their GPS-beaconing cell phone turned off during flight, whether they know the science or not, simply because they've been told to about a hundred times before and during the flight. But this guy wasn't having any of that. No, he was going to check his email or make a call or whatever (presumably he had forgotten about the Flight Mode setting) and the hell with anyone getting in his way.

When flight attendants' attempts to convince him to turn off his cell phone failed, they ended up having to restrain him, which probably made his case a bit worse with the El Paso law enforcement authorities who met him at the gate. Hope he chose wisely when asking whether he could make a phone call.