Child Restraint Systems

• CRS Update
  The FAA recently issued an Advanced Notice of Proposed Rulemaking (ANPRM) related to the use of child restraint systems on board an aircraft. The ANPRM is in response to the White House Commission on Aviation Safety and Security recommendation that the FAA should eliminate the exemptions that allow passengers under the age of two to travel without approved restraints.
  
  The ANPRM requests information, data, and analysis to assist the FAA in determining the best approach to enhancing the safety of children and to enable the agency to act on the Commission's  recommendation. "After reviewing the comments, the FAA may issue a Notice of Proposed Rulemaking with specific regulatory proposals." Comments are due on June 18, 1998.
  
  

• AFA Position Paper on Child Restraint Seats
  The Association of Flight Attendants, AFL-CIO, the largest flight attendant union in the United States representing more than 43,000 flight attendants at 27 airlines, strongly supports requiring child restraint seats for the following reasons:
  

  • Federal Aviation Regulations (FARs) require flight attendants on commercial flights to protect the safety of passengers. Yet neither flight attendants nor an infant's parents can protect unrestrained infants in the event of an airline accident or severe turbulence. A child on a parent's lap will likely break free from the adult's arms as a plane strikes objects on the ground.

  • A child that breaks free during a crash faces two serious hazards. First, the child may be injured as she/he strikes the aircraft interior. Second, the parents may not be able to find the infant after the crash. This is what happened in the United/Sioux City, Iowa crash. On impact, no parent was able to hold on to her/his child. One child was killed when he flew from his mother’s hold. Another child was rescued from an overhead compartment by a stranger.
    

  • In July, 1994 during the fatal crash of a USAir plane in Charlotte, North Carolina, another unrestrained infant was killed when her mother could not hold onto her on impact. The available seat next to the mother survived the crash intact. The National Transportation Safety Board believes that had the baby been secured in that seat, she would have been alive today. In fact, in a FAA study on accident survivability, the agency found that of the last nine infant deaths, five could have survived had they been in child restraint devices.
    

  • Turbulence is also a serious problem for unrestrained infants. In daily occurrences, children on their parents’ laps sustain injuries when they are thrown about in turbulence. In one of these, a flight attendant reported that a lap baby, who was walking down the aisle when the turbulence occurred, went flying through the cabin and was caught by another passenger.
    

  • This measure is endorsed by the White House Commission on Aviation Safety and Security, National Transportation Safety Board and the Aviation Consumer Action Project.

Far too many unrestrained children have been killed during crashes or injured during turbulence. Parents must learn that when children under the age of two sit on their laps, they are more at risk than any other passenger restrained in her/his own seat. Senator Patty Murray (D-WA) and Representatives Peter DeFazio (D-OR) and Chris Shays (R-CT) have re- introduced legislation (S. 398/H.R. 754) which would mandate the use of child restraint seats for children under two. The Association of Flight Attendants, AFL-CIO, knows there is only one safe way to fly for children under two and strongly supports mandating the use of child restraint seats for our youngest travelers.