Most Wanted
Transportation Safety
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Aviation
Require Restraint Systems for Children Under 2
Objective
Young children deserve the same level of safety provided to other aircraft passengers.
During take-off, landing, and turbulence, adults are required to be buckled up, baggage and coffee pots are stowed, computers are turned off and put away, yet infants and toddlers need not be restrained.
Summary of Action
In 1994, the Safety Board investigated an accident in Charlotte, North Carolina, in which a 9-month-old infant who was held on her mother's lap sustained fatal injuries. The child's mother was unable to maintain a secure hold on the child during the impact sequence, and the child struck several seats. The Safety Board believes that if the child had been properly restrained in a child restraint system, she might not have sustained fatal injuries. The Safety Board asked that small children be restrained in age appropriate restraint systems.
The FAA's initial response was to urge the Board to reconsider its recommendation for regulatory action to mandate the use of child restraints in favor of non-regulatory measures. The FAA based its response on a two-volume report to Congress entitled "Child Restraint Systems." The Safety Board recognized that the FAA expended considerable time and resources to develop the report, which concluded that mandating child restraint systems (CRS) on air carrier flights could result in some passenger diversions to automobiles, resulting in a net decrease in safety. However, we believe this was a flawed study that drew the wrong conclusions from the data used. The scenarios proposed by the FAA that result in passenger diversions to automobiles and a net safety reduction are based on the premise that substantially higher air fares for families traveling with children will create those diversions. The Safety Board responded that it believed that diversion was based upon incomplete analysis.
In May 1999, the FAA completed an Advance Notice of Proposed Rulemaking (ANPRM) gathering information related to the issue of requiring the restraint of all passengers during takeoff, landing, and turbulent conditions in flight. A review of the comments was to take place immediately and a Notice of Proposed Rulemaking (NPRM) was to follow in a short time.
At a December 1999 roundtable on child passenger safety on aircraft, sponsored by the Safety Board, the FAA Administrator made a commitment to establish rulemaking that would provide one level of safety for passengers of all ages. Although an NPRM was scheduled to be issued by April 2000, and then by the end of that year, an NPRM was not issued.
In January 2004, the FAA briefed the Board on its planned actions in response to this recommendation. The FAA indicated that based on continuing concerns about diversion it would not be issuing regulations mandating the use of child restraints. The Safety Board was also briefed by the American Academy of Pediatrics and the Association of Flight Attendants which remain strongly committed to the need for child restraints on aircraft. In July 2004, the Safety Board analyzed data from the past 24 years on road fatalities and injuries compared to the numbers of passenger aircraft enplanements. The analysis found that although during this period there have been three periods of reduced enplanements, the number of automotive vehicle miles traveled increased every year. This indicates that diversion to automobiles occurred 3 times for reasons other than mandating child restraints. Despite these diversions, fatalities in automobiles continued to decline, calling into question the validity of diversion as a basis for not mandating child restraints.
In conjunction with the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA), the FAA reviewed the Safety Board's recent analysis of the effects of diversion observed from events other than the use of child restraints. Both NHTSA and FAA believe the Board's analysis is not appropriate because of the relative volumes of auto travel and airplane travel. Safety Board staff continues to believe that the analysis was appropriate and correct. In a letter dated October 20, 2005, the FAA reiterated that it will not require the use of child restraints on aircraft. The FAA supplied copies of two recently published papers that found that highway deaths and injuries increased due to diversions from air travel to highway travel in the aftermath of September 11, 2001. Safety Board staff reviewed these studies and does not believe they contradict the findings of the Safety Board's 2004 analysis because neither paper addressed travel or injury specific to young children.
On August 26, 2005, the FAA published a notice that it was withdrawing the ANPRM, and that it would not pursue any rulemaking to mandate the use of child restraints on aircraft. Although the FAA has maintained that it has and will conduct an aggressive public education campaign seeking to increase child restraint usage on aircraft, that effort has amounted to little more than the creation of a page on the FAA's web site. Only a motivated parent who knows of this web page will be able to find it. The FAA's education campaign includes no evaluation effort, nor is an evaluation component being considered. The Board is unaware of any media campaign that seeks to provide public education on the need for child restraints when flying.
Action(s) Remaining
The Safety Board believes that all occupants should be restrained during takeoff, landing, and turbulent conditions and that all infants and small children should be restrained in an approved child restraint system appropriate to their height and weight.
Safety Recommendation
A-95-51 (FAA)
Issued May 16, 1995
Added to the Most Wanted List: 1999
Status: Open—Unacceptable Response
Revise 14 Code Of Federal Regulations [CFR] Parts 91, 135, and 121 to require that all occupants be restrained during takeoff, landing, and turbulent conditions, and that all infants and small children be restrained in a manner appropriate to their size. (Source: USAir DC-9 Accident, flight 1016, at Charlotte, North Carolina, on July 2, 1994 [NTSB/AAR-95-03])
November 2005
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