There's no harm in continuing to listen to music, watch movies, read e-books and otherwise enjoy "airplane mode" activities on electronic devices during takeoff and landing, according to an advisory committee appointed by the Federal Aviation Authority (FAA).
The committee submitted a report to the FAA this week, recommending the agency ease restrictions on use of electronic devices when a plane is below 10,000 feet, the Wall Street Journal reported.
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The FAA confirmed it received the report, but would not discuss it further, nor would it offer any timeframe for issuing a response.
"The FAA received the report and recommendations today on the expanded use of personal electronic devices," FAA spokesman Les Dorr told Mashable in an email on Monday. "The administrator will review the report and determine next steps."
Paul Misener, Amazon's vice president of global public policy, is one of the leaders of the advisory committee the FAA appointed to look into the matter last year. Misener told the Wall Street Journal "the committee effectively determined there are no major safety impediments to allowing unlimited use of tablets, e-readers and other hand-held devices from the beginning to the end of flights ." (The committee is also comprised of [PDF] representatives from Airbus, Cessna, and officials from the FAA and FCC.)
The report, which includes more than two dozen recommendations, does not recommend changing rules restricting activities that require a network connection such as voice calls or data transfer. Those will likely remain off limits, as rules for cellphone use on planes have been governed by the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) since 1991.
The advisory committee did suggest the FAA should work with the FCC to reassess those restrictions as well, the Wall Street Journal reported.
The next step in the process is for the FAA to respond to the advisory committee's report, though the agency would not comment on when that might happen. Stay tuned for now.
Image: Flickr, 900hp