Testimony of Barry Sweedler, Director Office of Safety Recommendations
National Transportation Safety Board
before the Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure
Subcommittee on Aviation, House of Representatives
Regarding Legislation to Require the Use of Child Safety Restraint Systems Aboard Aircraft
August 1, 1996

As you are aware, the National Transportation Safety Board issued its first safety recommendation regarding child restraints aboard aircraft in 1979. At that time, the Board recommended that the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) "Expedite research with a view toward early rulemaking on a means to most effectively restrain infants and small children during in-flight upsets and survivable crash landings." Since then, we have continued to issue recommendations on this subject, including a 1990 recommendation that all occupants be restrained during takeoff, landing and turbulent conditions, and that all infants and small children be restrained in an approved child restraint system. Unfortunately, there is still no requirement to properly restrain infants and other small children -- the only passengers, crew, baggage or service equipment on the airplane not requiring restraint.

The Safety Board testified before this Committee six years ago on the subject of child restraint. At that hearing, the Safety Board concluded that unrestrained infants and small children were not being offered the same level of protection as other occupants, and that unrestrained children expose other occupants in the cabin to an increased risk of injury.

Sadly, since the Safety Board's testimony six years ago, another unrestrained infant was killed during a DC-9 accident near the Charlotte/Douglas International Airport, Charlotte, North Carolina on July 12, 1994. Thirty seven passengers received fatal injuries, including a 9-month old in-lap infant who was held by her mother in the last row of the cabin. The child's mother was unable to hold onto the child during the impact sequence and the baby died of massive head injuries. The mother survived with fractures to her elbow and arm.

As a result of its investigation of that accident, the Safety Board issued two safety recommendations to the FAA, urging it to require that all infants and small children be restrained in a manner appropriate to their size, and to develop standards for forward-facing, integrated child safety seats for transport category aircraft.

The FAA responded by urging the Safety 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. These diversions are based on the FAA's elasticity estimates that characterize families traveling with children being highly price sensitive.

Given the FAA's assumed price sensitivity for these travelers, the Safety Board believes that if airlines were to charge families a substantial fare for infants who currently are traveling free, the initial reduction in air travel would result in a substantial revenue loss for airlines, causing them to incur the FAA study's revenue loss estimate of up to $6 billion over a 10-year period. However, the Safety Board is certain that the airlines will not let $6 billion worth of price-sensitive travelers shift to the automobile without a competitive response. Airlines could offer any number of innovations to keep the families flying, such as free seats for infants or group discounts. The FAA study recognizes this likelihood in a passage on pages 7-1 that states, "Air carriers are expected to charge for infants only with the possibility of minimal passenger diversions and no net loss of revenues. Those charges would occur during peak travel seasons [when the report predicts families are least likely to switch to automobiles] and peak period of the day. [Families] may be offered significant infant fare discounts or free infant passage during off-peak periods."

In testimony before the U.S. House of Representatives on July  20, 1990, the Vice President of Operations for the Air Transport Association stated that with regard to potential passenger diversion to automobiles, air carriers "rather than risk the loss of one or more adult fares or perhaps an entire family unit, will offer a fare arrangement acceptable even for families traveling with infants who previously would have flown free."

The airlines are likely to permanently impose higher fares for infants only if they discover that the families traveling with infants are less price sensitive in practice than anticipated by the FAA. In that event, again, there would be limited diversion of passengers to automobiles and the added risk of automobile accidents.

Consequently, the Safety Board believes that the FAA's projected costs to air travelers, revenue losses to airlines, and passenger diversions to automobiles as a result of mandated CRS for infants are based upon incomplete analysis.

The Safety Board also noted the FAA's intention to develop a nationwide public education campaign to promote the use of child restraints. The Safety Board does not, however, believe that education alone will result in the protection of infants and small children on airplanes. Education alone did not result in high usage of CRS in automobiles; consequently, all 50 states and the District of Columbia now have mandatory, automobile child restraint laws. The Safety Board was pleased to learn that Secretary Pena wrote to air carriers asking that they establish incentives that encourage parents to fly with properly restrained children; the efforts made by Southwest Airlines to offer a discount fare to children who use CRS were consistent with such efforts.

Another problem identified by the Safety Board is the issue of FAA enforcement of the regulation that requires all passengers who have reached their second birthday to be restrained during takeoff and landing. The Safety Board has identified at least six cases in which children more than 2 years old were unrestrained because they were held in an adult's lap. The ages of these children ranged from 26 months to 5 years old. In an accident report adopted two days ago -- the June 1995 ValuJet accident in which a DC-9 burned on an Atlanta runway after an engine failure -- the Safety Board stated that although it does not agree with the existing regulation, until such time as restraints are required for all occupants, the Safety Board recommended that the FAA provide guidance on how to implement its requirements that occupants who are older than 2 years of age be restrained during takeoffs and landings.

The Safety Board is pleased to report to the committee that it has investigated two accidents in which CRS were used and provided protection to children; one air carrier accident and one general aviation accident.

On September 6, 1992, a Piper PA-30 entered an uncontrolled descent and crashed at Broussard, Louisiana. Parts of both wings and both horizontal stabilators separated before the airplane struck the ground. Although the impact involved high vertical and side loads, a 4-year-old boy and a 10-month-old girl who occupied the rear bench seat in child restraint systems survived the accident with serious injuries. Their father was killed. The Safety Board determined that the children survived because they occupied CRS.

More recently, the Board investigated an MD-80 accident at Pensacola on July 6, 1996. This accident appears to be the first fatal air carrier accident in which a child restraint system (CRS) was used. Although the Safety Board is still investigating this accident, photographs show that the frame of the CRS provided protection against debris. The family that used the CRS was seated in a row directly behind a row in which two passengers sustained fatal injuries. According to the parents, the CRS protected their daughter from being injured.

Mr. Chairman, the Safety Board has, over the past 25 years, issued various recommendations that urged the FAA to solve the problems associated with unrestrained children. The Safety Board believes that protection for children should not be a "safety option." It is time for the FAA to require that all occupants be restrained.

That concludes my formal statement, Mr. Chairman. I will be pleased to respond to any questions that you may have.