Three years later, Khadija Zaidi-Rashid still remembered the screams of other passengers, the unexplained expression on the face of the start of flight and the helplessness that she held on her lap.
Dr. Zaidi-Rashid, 34, then a doctoral student, flew with her mother and two children from Washington to Doha, Qatar when her plane encountered heavy turbulence. Her other child, a toddler, sat next to him in a place, and half an hour trembled from Roller-Coaster and the bunch felt like hours. Since then – although everyone has appeared intact – she has not been able to overcome the feeling of concern on every flight she makes.
“The turbulence caused me to feel claustrophobic, all possible anxiety in connection with motherhood,” she said, adding that she no longer sleeps during flights. She fears that her older children are slipping out of their seat belts, which they must now have. As a precaution, she holds her hand on them.
She is not alone. In the past few months, after a number of terrible plane plumbers and accidents on the asphalt, the parents have washed the online measurement boards and lit group chats to discharge their fears of upcoming flights and long -term security standards for family trips.
The accidents for which a collision in the air in Washington and an aircraft were freaked into Toronto have concerns whether small children are adequately protected in aircraft, especially in infants. The concern has forced some parents to rethink how they fly.
Keep babies safe in the air
Holding your little child on her lap has been acceptable in the flight for decades. The practice that enables airlines to fly freely or get travelers under the age of 2 or get a steep discount saves the parents or nurses. The parents list the comfort and comfort of their child as other important motivators.
However, the safety of practice has been discussed for decades.
Aerospace security agencies around the world have made their position clear: children are the safest in airplanes when they are secured in approved children's retention systems such as car seats for the use of aircraft in their own seats.
“Your arms are unable to keep your in-lap child secure, especially in the case of unexpected turbulence,” warns the Federal Aviation Administration on your website. The European Aviation Safety Agency states that several studies have come to the conclusion that child seats for children “meet a level of security for adult passengers”.
Pediatricians, flight attendants and academics agree. They emphasize the increased risks of injuries to lap children. They could be hit by the waking cars or objects that fall from the luggage containers.
A study from 2019 in the magazine Pediatric Emergency Care showed that of around 114,000 medical events that took place on flights between 2009 and 2014, more than 12,000 children trapped. Of these participants, around 2,000 children, which more than “stopped twice as often an injury while flight in flight with other medical events during the flight”.
However, if parents want to use car seats or other safety equipment on board, the rules differ from the airline (or even the seat on the plane). Which devices are available can also vary. Some aircraft have chair goods that cannot be guaranteed on the day of travel. Not all car seats fit on smaller aircraft. In Europe, the seat belts for children who secure a child to a parent are available, although it is not permitted in the United States and Canada, since the concerns that a child's belly or the parent could be seriously injured. There are even rules that infants cannot be worn during the start and country in straps, the most dangerous period of a flight.
Lack of legislation
The official language of the FAA about children who fly in rounds is only a warning without legal weight. Legislation even approved a new study on the security of children during flying, which was introduced in the congress almost two years ago.
The lack of federal regulation about LAP children “gives the parents” the wrong assumption that if this is permissible, Jan Brown, a former flight attendant of United Airlines.
In 1989 Ms. Brown survived an aircraft accident in Iowa, where 111 out of 296 people died on board, including passengers and crew. Flight attendant advised the parents to place their children on their feet, the standard security instructions at this time. There were four infants on the flight and one, a 23 -month -old, died.
It is incredibly rare that every passenger dies in a commercial aircraft accident, and the aviation remains much safer than driving. This was the conclusion of a study on the use of car seats in aircraft that were carried out by the FAA in 1994. The report was claimed that the car seats were the safest place for children and the parents to buy an additional seating would prevent them from flying. Instead, they resorted to driving, a more statistically fatal form of the transit.
However, there was no significant investigation as to whether a considerable number of families would instead of flying, based on the cost of buying a seat for your child, said William McGee, Senior Fellow at The American Economic Liberties Project, a non-profit research and interest representation.
“It should be noted that the FAA never studied its own theory,” he said. “Instead, it was always easily accepted, without statistical analyzes, surveys, public comments or sensible research that contradicts the government's government procedures.”
Lia Tuso, an expert for children in aviation, said that the child's safety remains a “defect in the aviation industry”.
Airlines generally do not notice the security risks of lap children on their websites, only that they are allowed.
Hannah Walden, a spokeswoman for the Airlines trade group for America, said in a statement that US airlines “follow the instructions and regulations specified by our security regulatory authority, the Federal Aviation Administration”.
But a noticeable shift in culture, said Ms. Tuso, could occur: the parents are becoming increasingly aware of the risks, with car seats and other alternatives being used more frequently. They are increasingly becoming crowdsourcing for instructions for equipment and best practices so as not to fly with their children on their rounds.
Although there are many rules for adults that fly with airplanes, said Chelsea Nicholls, the mother of a 16 -month -old child, it is as if there are “no rules for the children”.
Mrs. Nicholls, 35, a marketing manager from New Canan, Conn., To whom previously believed to fly unwieldy and impractical with a car seat. Before a recent flight to Florida, she bought her daughter a seat and a FAA-enclosed wiring harness.
“I never felt like an anxious person,” she said. “They take their own security for granted, but if they take care of a small child, they flood so many thoughts.”
Ms. Nicholls traveled to Florida and said she felt “comfortable and safe” and saw how her child, especially during the occasional bumps of the flight, was strapped into her own seat.
“It definitely got me a bit,” she said.
Delaney and Jake Steele from Vancouver, Washington, were on the flight of Alaska Airlines with her daughter Quinette, when a door connector flies out of the cabin, when the aircraft rose. They sat back five rows and on the opposite side of the gaping hole. The then 9 -month -old Quinette was on Ms. Steeles lap.
The sudden loss of air pressure was the “loudest what you have ever heard,” said 36 -year -old Mr. Steele. They fought to keep the oxygen mask on their daughter, who screamed and reduced minute.
Ms. Steele, 30, met the possibility that your child could have been won out of the plane until it had landed. Since then she has not set a plane in any plane.
“I don't know how well I will take the little ones,” said Ms. Steele, who, together with her husband, submitted a lawsuit against Alaska Airlines and Boeing, the manufacturer of the aircraft. The couple now has a second child at the age of 5 months. “If we fly 2 now, it is a matter of course that they are somehow strapped.”
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