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This came up decades ago when Bob Machol was chief scientist at the FAA. A plane had pitched downward, and the parent lost their hold on the baby, which fell to

by mjd 4y ago

This came up decades ago when Bob Machol was chief scientist at the FAA. A plane had pitched downward, and the parent lost their hold on the baby, which fell to the front of the cabin and died. A ban on lap babies was proposed. Machol pointed out that requiring parents to buy separate tickets for babies would price some families out of the market for air travel, leading them to drive instead. But driving is much more dangerous than air travel. Many more babies would have been killed by the rule change. Machol was able to persuade the FAA to keep the rule.

101011 4y ago
That's fascinating - do you happen to have a source for this? I tried Googling but came up empty.
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
- mjd 4y ago
  Machol discusses it in this address he gave at a 1992 sciences conference; it's on page 10. https://icus.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/Machol-Robert-E.-Air-Transport.pdf https://icus.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/Machol-Robert-E.... He says that the calculations they did at the FAA suggested that for each infant saved by requiring a separate ticket, six would have been killed in car crashes. (That's not my original source; it's just the first thing I found.)
- mjd 4y ago
  Here's a 2002 pediatric journal paper that comes to the same conclusion: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/5457713_Effects_and_Costs_of_Requiring_Child-Restraint_Systems_for_Young_Children_Traveling_on_Commercial_Airplanes/link/552e911d0cf2d4950719b61e/download https://www.researchgate.net/publication/5457713_Effects_and... "Results of this study show that requiring CRSs on airplanes would prevent few airplane crash deaths and might cause an increase in motor vehicle deaths if many families switched to travel by car rather than paying additional fares for their young children. Irrespective of that possibility, the cost of the regulation per death prevented would be highabout $1.3 billion if the price of the round-trip ticket for the young child were $200.These findings suggest that a policy requiring CRSs on airplanes would be a poor use of societal resources."
alphabettsy 4y ago
Interesting. It would seem driving would be significantly safer for a baby than the driving parent.
chongli 4y ago
This seems like it could be solved with a restraint for the baby. Like one of those baby carriers that parents wear with the baby resting against the parent’s chest. They don’t necessarily need to keep the baby in there for the whole flight but when the seatbelt light comes on the baby should be safely restrained.
- SkyMarshal 4y ago
  Exactly my first thought too. Seems like a simple enough solution that protects the baby without requiring purchasing a second seat.
- shric 4y ago
  Just speculating... airplane seatbelts don't restrain the torso of the adult, so any strong forward motion could potentially injure or kill the baby restrained in such a manner?
  - chongli 4y ago
    Well that would have to be included: a shoulder belt as part of the system. This would keep the parent’s body from pitching forward and harming the baby. It wouldn’t need to be on every seat. It could be something extra they attach to your seat when you bring your baby on board.
    - _s 4y ago
      Car-styled seatbelts with shoulder restraints already exist in newer business class seats. The shoulder but detaches too so you only have a lap belt when lying down.
  - dymk 4y ago
    A critical function of a seatbelt is to protect others in the cabin from a flying body tumbling about, in addition to being protecting the person buckled up.
- ____a 4y ago
  The irony is today you literally have to take a baby out of those carriers for take off and landing, but can have them in it at other times on the plane. That said, there might be a way to make a new type of carrier that is safer.
BrandoElFollito 4y ago
I imagine that the danger is also for other passengers. A 5 or 7 kg baby flying through the cabin is a deadly projectile for others as well. This is what I am thinking about when I pack the back of my car (a SUV-like one where the boot is available to passengers if they reach behind their seats). I always try to imagine what happens if we hit a wall. We had in France a gov ad (a public announcement of sorts about the dangers of cars) where a bowling ball was flying in slow motion during a crash. It was quite terrifying.
- cafard 4y ago
  Shortly after he resigned as French prime minister in 1940, Paul Reynaud lost his mistress to an unsecured suitcase that came loose when he lost control of their car and hit a tree.
lxm 4y ago
> But driving is much more dangerous than air travel. This was probably valid back when car seats were rudimentary, but nowadays it seems like a strapped baby in a properly installed car seat is quite safe?
- josephcsible 4y ago
  Relative to old-fashioned car seats, modern car seats are indeed quite safe, but relative to air travel they're not.

by mjd 4y ago

101011 4y ago

That's fascinating - do you happen to have a source for this? I tried Googling but came up empty.

deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
mjd 4y ago
Machol discusses it in this address he gave at a 1992 sciences conference; it's on page 10. https://icus.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/Machol-Robert-E.-Air-Transport.pdf https://icus.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/Machol-Robert-E.... He says that the calculations they did at the FAA suggested that for each infant saved by requiring a separate ticket, six would have been killed in car crashes. (That's not my original source; it's just the first thing I found.)
mjd 4y ago
Here's a 2002 pediatric journal paper that comes to the same conclusion: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/5457713_Effects_and_Costs_of_Requiring_Child-Restraint_Systems_for_Young_Children_Traveling_on_Commercial_Airplanes/link/552e911d0cf2d4950719b61e/download https://www.researchgate.net/publication/5457713_Effects_and... "Results of this study show that requiring CRSs on airplanes would prevent few airplane crash deaths and might cause an increase in motor vehicle deaths if many families switched to travel by car rather than paying additional fares for their young children. Irrespective of that possibility, the cost of the regulation per death prevented would be highabout $1.3 billion if the price of the round-trip ticket for the young child were $200.These findings suggest that a policy requiring CRSs on airplanes would be a poor use of societal resources."

alphabettsy 4y ago

Interesting. It would seem driving would be significantly safer for a baby than the driving parent.

chongli 4y ago

This seems like it could be solved with a restraint for the baby. Like one of those baby carriers that parents wear with the baby resting against the parent’s chest. They don’t necessarily need to keep the baby in there for the whole flight but when the seatbelt light comes on the baby should be safely restrained.

SkyMarshal 4y ago
Exactly my first thought too. Seems like a simple enough solution that protects the baby without requiring purchasing a second seat.
shric 4y ago
Just speculating... airplane seatbelts don't restrain the torso of the adult, so any strong forward motion could potentially injure or kill the baby restrained in such a manner?
- chongli 4y ago
  Well that would have to be included: a shoulder belt as part of the system. This would keep the parent’s body from pitching forward and harming the baby. It wouldn’t need to be on every seat. It could be something extra they attach to your seat when you bring your baby on board.
  - _s 4y ago
    Car-styled seatbelts with shoulder restraints already exist in newer business class seats. The shoulder but detaches too so you only have a lap belt when lying down.
- dymk 4y ago
  A critical function of a seatbelt is to protect others in the cabin from a flying body tumbling about, in addition to being protecting the person buckled up.
____a 4y ago
The irony is today you literally have to take a baby out of those carriers for take off and landing, but can have them in it at other times on the plane. That said, there might be a way to make a new type of carrier that is safer.

BrandoElFollito 4y ago

I imagine that the danger is also for other passengers. A 5 or 7 kg baby flying through the cabin is a deadly projectile for others as well. This is what I am thinking about when I pack the back of my car (a SUV-like one where the boot is available to passengers if they reach behind their seats). I always try to imagine what happens if we hit a wall. We had in France a gov ad (a public announcement of sorts about the dangers of cars) where a bowling ball was flying in slow motion during a crash. It was quite terrifying.

cafard 4y ago
Shortly after he resigned as French prime minister in 1940, Paul Reynaud lost his mistress to an unsecured suitcase that came loose when he lost control of their car and hit a tree.

lxm 4y ago

> But driving is much more dangerous than air travel. This was probably valid back when car seats were rudimentary, but nowadays it seems like a strapped baby in a properly installed car seat is quite safe?

josephcsible 4y ago
Relative to old-fashioned car seats, modern car seats are indeed quite safe, but relative to air travel they're not.