In a Boston Globe story today about the griping of people who are against allowing people to use their cell phones in airplanes, one particular quote stands out:

Keith Owens, a pilot for Comair, which handles regional flights for Delta Air Lines out of Logan International Airport, worries that the noise from passengers chattering on phones could distract the crew. ”Safety of a flight would be a big issue. I’m 100 percent against it,” he said.

Mr. Owens is represented as a pilot, so we may assume that he has been in an airplane.

Yet he thinks that the incredible noise of people talking on cell phones will distract the crew. Apparently the mind-numbing wind and engine noise you already have inside an airplane isn’t a problem. I see.