Casualties During Air Emergencies Seen as Preventable

The National Transportation Safety Board Tuesday voted to keep on its Most Wanted List of Safety Improvements a recommendation to require appropriate restraint of infants and small children at times when the use of seatbelts is required aboard aircraft.
 
"For more than 15 years, our union has advocated the mandatory use of child restraints, during which unrestrained children have sustained avoidable injuries and death," said Chris Witkowski, director of air safety, health and security for the Association of Flight Attendants-CWA, AFL-CIO. "We are pleased that the Board renewed its commitment to a single level of safety in every mode of transportation."

In 1995, the NTSB recommended that the Federal Aviation Administration require "that all occupants [of airliners] be restrained during takeoff, landing and turbulent conditions, and that all infants and small children be restrained in a manner appropriate to their size." The FAA, which in years past has used flawed assumptions to allege that requiring child restraint seats would shift passengers to more dangerous highway travel, has yet to mandate their use despite promises in 1999 to do so. In today's action, the NTSB changed the status of its recommendation from "open acceptable" to "open unacceptable" with respect to the FAA's pace of activity.

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