American flight attendants want to ban lap-infants

American flight attendants want to ban lap-infants | Secret Flying

Flight attendants want to ban parents from putting babies on their laps during flights.

 

Citing safety concerns, and a string of recent incidents involving turbulence on flights, the Association of Flight Attendants (AFA) is calling to ban infants from sitting on their parent’s lap during a flight.

 

The AFA raised the issue Wednesday at the Federal Aviation Administration safety summit in Northern Virginia and has submitted its list of priorities, including “a seat for every soul,” to Congress.

 

“We’ve seen airplanes go through turbulence recently and drop 4,000 feet in a split second,” said Sara Nelson, the international president of the Association of Flight Attendants-CWA.

 

“The G-forces are not something even the most loving mother or father can guard against and hold their child. It’s just physically impossible.”

 

The tragedy that haunts Nelson occurred in 1989, when United Flight 232 crash-landed in Sioux City, Iowa. Following protocol, the flight attendants instructed the parents to wrap their unbuckled babies in blankets and place them on the floor. Three of the infants suffered injuries, and one died.

 

“Sadly this has been more than a 30-year priority for our union,” Nelson said. “We must have children safe on the plane and in their own seats with a proper restraint device to make sure it never happens again.”

 

According to the FAA’s Civil Air Regulation Section 40.174, “A seat and an individual safety belt are required for each passenger and crew member excluding infants, who are in other than a recumbent position.”

 

On many foreign carriers, parents can secure their child with a belly loop belt that wraps around the baby’s torso and attaches to the adult’s seat belt.

 

However, in the United States, the rules are slightly different, with parents able to hold their kids on their laps without the use of a seatbelt throughout the whole flight, as he FAA prohibits the belly loop belt because of its potential dangers.

 

The safest option, according to the AFA, is for parents to purchase a seat for their infant or toddler and secure them in an FAA-approved child restraint system.