Tue, Mar 22, 2016
Four-Year-Old Girl Left With Burns, Cuts, And Bruises In 2012 incident
A four-year-old girl traveling from Washington, D.C. to London's Heathrow airport aboard a Virgin Airlines airplane in 2012 was severely injured when the airbag installed in her seat belt exploded, causing burns and lacerations on her face.
The airline has now settled for a "five-figure" amount and offered an apology to the girl and her family, according to the U.K. newspaper The Daily Mail.
The girl, Daisy James, was traveling with her grandmother on the flight. They had visited D.C. during a school holiday. The grandmother had offered to travel with the girl so that her parents could continue to work during the school break.
The airline had installed the airbags to meet an FAA requirement for seats that can withstand 16 Gs of force during an accident. The airbag is supposed to reduce the stress of impact on the human body, and increase the likelihood that they will remain conscious, thereby giving them a better chance of evacuating the airplane.
The airbag is supposed to open up and away from the passenger, but the device that injured the girl was reportedly faulty, and deployed with no trigger from the airplane's sensors.
Daisy was initially treated by paramedics when she arrived back at Heathrow, and was later transferred to a hospital. She was given a prognosis for a full recovery, but her parents said she struggled to eat and drink, and suffered from nightmares related to the accident. She still talks about it constantly, her mother told the paper.
Virgin has taken responsibility for the accident, along with the settlement and the apology. "We have expressed our sincere apologies to the family and while it doesn't lessen the impact of what happened, we have reached a settlement to the family's satisfaction," the airline said through a spokeswoman. "We have investigated the incident thoroughly and can confirm that it was an extremely unusual and isolated incident."
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