ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Sunday, June 30, 1996 TAG: 9606290005
SECTION: TRAVEL PAGE: 6 EDITION: METRO
Children will not be permitted to sit in booster seats, harnesses or safety vests aboard airplanes after Sept. 3. The Federal Aviation Administration issued its rule earlier this month, to take effect in 90 days.
This action follows Civil Aeromedical Institute tests made by Van Gowdy, an FAA biodynamics engineer, that found backless booster seats and harnesses did not offer children the protection in airplane seats that they offered in automobile seats.
Approved child safety seats with backs and sides that belt into an airplane seat continue to be acceptable despite inadequacies Gowdy's tests found with some forward-facing models. The FAA recommends that children under 20 pounds ride in rear-facing approved seats, that children 20 to 40 pounds ride in approved forward-facing models, and that children over 40 pounds ride in the regular adult safety belt.
Airline rules still permit children under 2, who need not have tickets, to ride in adults' laps; they are the only people aboard airplanes not required by law to be belted in for takeoff and landing. Despite repeated appeals to the FAA by the National Transportation Safety Board, which investigates accidents and takes note of children on laps who are injured and killed in survivable crashes, this rule has not been changed.
- THE NEW YORK TIMES
LENGTH: Short : 33 linesby CNB