FAA panel says WiFi is safe to use during flight takeoff and landing

The news comes after the FAA panel also recommended that use of electronic devices — including tablets, smartphones, e-readers, and laptops — be allowed throughout entire flights.
 
Currently, airlines only let flyers use their gadgets and in-flight Wi-Fi once they hit a cruising altitude of 10,000 feet, ostensibly due to worries that they would affect flight navigation equipment.
 
“The vast majority” of airplanes “are going to be just fine,” Paul Misener, Amazon’s vice president of global public policy and a member of the FAA panel, told the WSJ.
 
Current in-flight Wi-Fi systems from Gogo and others only turn on after planes reach 10,000 feet. Gogo notes that its technology isn’t optimized for use below that altitude, but competitors like Panasonic Avionics say that their solutions could work during all portions of flight.
 
The recommendation is yet another stab at the draconian FAA rules restricting electronics, which have been criticized for not keeping up with the rapid pace of consumer technology over the past few years. Rather than rigorously test the effect of modern gadgets and computers on aircraft, an expensive and time-consuming process, the FAA took a “better safe than sorry approach” to establishing its restrictions.