I think they’re talking about an actual stand-alone camcorder, not a cell phone with video capabilities.
How long did the whole incident take, that’s a question too. Most cell phones take at least ten seconds to boot up. If it looks like somebody’s trying to blow up the plane, my first thought is not going to be, hey, I’m going to turn on my cell phone and stare it for ten or fifteen seconds, then I’ll fumble with the keyboard so I can take a movie of whatever is happening thirty seconds from now.
Are you really that uninformed about phone tech, jiggy?
Not everyone has their phone off when they're supposed to...haven't you ever watched what people do on an airplane? The people with Blackberries/iPhones put them in "flight mode" where the phone transceiver is off, but the rest of the PDA/cam function great.
I think they’re talking about an actual stand-alone camcorder, not a cell phone with video capabilities.
Well, ok. You can think whatever you wish.
But since they don't even know where this guy is, who he was, or what he looked like, I'm pretty sure this article doesn't accurately convey the classification of a video recorder.
"Does it use cassettes, or SD cards or internal flash or what, sir?" is not a question I suspect anyone on board was asking the fella. A few GB flash memory could record the entire flight at low camera-phone resolutions.
I sent my phone to “airplane mode” when I travel. The camera is readily available and usable in airplane mode.