Stronger Seats Designed To Increase Crash Survivability

It's the kind of story for which you might want a fanfare. Something bold and brassy. After all, this has been a long-time coming.

After 17-years, the FAA has finally completed work on its rule requiring stronger passenger seats on commercial flights. The rule will affect aircraft built after 2009.

The seats will have to withstand 16-Gs -- compared to the 9-G requirement currently in effect. Same goes for the cabin floors and the tracks upon which the seats are mounted.

The rule does not require aircraft manufacturers to retrofit aircraft currently in service. That's a tip of the hat to the industry turmoil that broke out after the terrorist attacks of 2001.

Aircraft built since the 1990s already have seats that can withstand 16-Gs.

"It was not worth the minute safety benefit for retrofits," said John Hickey, director of FAA's Aircraft Certification Service, quoted by the Washington Post. "It's the right, sweet-spot solution -- it gives passengers the safety benefit at a very reasonable cost."

Indeed, the Post reports a retrofit solution would have cost the industry $519 million. The current solution will cost approximately $34 million between 2009 and 2034. In that period, the FAA estimates the airline industry will take delivery on 1,752 new aircraft with a total of 225,274 passenger seats.

"From a carrier perspective, this rule makes sense," Basil J. Barimo, vice president of operations and safety for the Air Transport Association, told the Post. "The FAA recognized they had a difficult case to make with retrofit design because a significant number of seats had already been replaced with 16-G compatible seats."

FMI: www.faa.gov