But all JL516 passengers survived? How would keeping these passengers from using their phones during landing have reduced their deaths?
* https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O5jSyaj_JwE
* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Air_France_Flight_358
The FAA mandates that aircraft are able to be evacuated with-in 90s:
* https://www.faa.gov/documentLibrary/media/Advisory_Circular/...
Even for something as big as an A380 in its 800+ passenger configuration:
* https://www.flightglobal.com/airbus-a380-evacuation-trial-fu...
* https://simpleflying.com/aircraft-90-second-evacuation/
The difference between 180s and 90s is 90s: if (e.g.) ~30 people out of ~350 passengers (<10%) take an extra 3 seconds each because they are not aware of their surroundings, that time is eaten up.
Seconds matter.
1. Passengers on JL516 were not permitted to use their phones during landing.
2. I'm proposing that we start allowing them to use their phones.
3. If we did that then all 379 passengers would have died [1] because evacuation would have taken longer than the time before the plane was engulfed in flames [2]
Except #1 isn't the case: passengers were allowed to be on their phones and were doing so. And so #2 isn't the case either: I'm proposing maintaining the status quo.
And even if we had granted #1 and #2 I don't see how you get #3 because even if the extra time were entirely eaten up by 30 distracted passengers this wouldn't get you 100% dead: people don't leave in a single batch determined by the speed of the slowest person. There are multiple parallel exits, and each exit operates serially.
You are right that it does not necessarily follow that 100% would be dead. AC 797 had a flash fire after 90 seconds, and only about half the people died. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯