Question: Do cell phones really interfere with a plane's navigation system or, for that matter, ground communications? Federal agencies like the FAA and FCC may be clinging to their suspicions, but a growing chorus of technical experts say: No.

Answer: ''If the pilot has a cell phone on during the time that he happens to be in the cockpit, then he is the only one who can really affect what's going on,'' says Howard Melamed, president and CEO of CellAntenna Corp., in Coral Springs, Fla.

''Everybody else -- and here I'll give you an example -- the cell phone signal 3 feet away from the antenna of the cell phone is one- one-thousandth of its initial energy,'' he says. Your cell phone ''interferes with nobody.''

''Let's think logically here,'' he adds. ''If it was such a big problem, would they trust us? I mean, how many times do people on an airplane forget to turn their cell phone off. ... If it was really life and death, then -- trust me -- they would ask us to check our cell phones at the front.''

''They stop you with lighters. They stop you with baby formula. You mean to tell me they're not going to stop you with a cell phone if can really take planes down out of the sky?''

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Stephanie Hoo is asap's business writer.