I can remember commercial flights that originated in Asia on which no one would have been able to use a lever, much less a cell phone. There was a lot of duty free booze that never left the aircraft.

At least on your flight the people were probably singing in tune.

I flew to Graz, Austria to be on the faculty of a musical institute in 1978 on a charter flight out of New York. The charter departed six hours late, and I had been up all night already, taking the redeye to save money on the leg of the trip I had to pay for. Most of the 200 or so musicians and singers (instrumentalists and singers, I should say… some of the singers turned out to be musicians, rather good ones) were similarly fried and cranky, so they fed us all free drinks as compensation for our troubles. I don’t want to think how a pilot and crew today would react to our drunken revelry, but I suspect all of us would have been sent to Gitmo, or at least a military prison. Come to think of it, though, more than a few among us were people of color, but not one of us pulled out a cell phone.

This stuff was banned at a time when most “portable” equipment was a hell of a lot bigger and wasted a lot more energy. Even then it was an overly cautious approach.

TEMPEST was the military reaction to this reality, while the airline reaction was the ban. Both are a waste of effort for a number of reasons, and there are cheap solutions available.

Paranoia is the operative word here.

From what has been reported today it sounds like this was a group of guys on their way home, possibly for the wedding of one or more of them, and I assume they were passing the cell phones to show pictures, not to make calls.

When I flew out to Las Vegas earlier this summer, I turned off my iPod when they said we had to turn off all electronic equipment for takeoff (though the logic behind that request escapes me, given that an iPod, without an iTrip or similar accessory, does not broadcast any signals), but left my earphones in, figuring I’d turn it back on as soon as they told us it was safe to do so, because I wasn’t about to pay the American Airlines fee to buy a set of headphones, only to listen to the four selections they had on any of their music channels all throughout a four-hour flight. I must have been asked by every flight attendant on the plane at least twice whether I was sure I had turned off my iPod. It got to the point where one of my fellow travelers, across the aisle, turned it into a running joke. On the return flight, I disconnected the earphones and put them in my pocket.

It’s the standard carry-on luggage in these parts.

I’ve seen it on planes. I saw it on trains in Europe with German families, Italian families, Greek families, English families, Spanish families, et al. It is a very recognizable pattern. The only reason I can think of for the airline calling it suspicious it because of the nationality of the people.

Northwest should definitely be sued and that flight crew should definitely get the “Dumpster Divers Handbook”.