The TSB report cited 1979 research that found that “due to limitations in human clasping strength, it is not always possible for adults to restrain children adequately in their laps by holding onto them, and that children under 2 years old traveling in airplanes were being exposed to undue risks of injury by seating them on an adult’s lap.” 1 “In the case of severe turbulence, a sudden deceleration or a crash such as this one, research has proven that adults are not strong enough to adequately restrain a lap-held infant just by holding onto them.” “Every day, families board commercial aircraft with babies and young children, and the majority trust that, if something goes wrong, a parent’s arms can restrain their child safely,” Fox added. He was found afterward next to the captain’s rudder pedals with multiple injuries, the report said.
Nevertheless, during the approach, she held the 23-lb (10-kg) infant correctly, according to the instructions she had received on previous flights - “against her chest, with the infant facing aft,” the report said.ĭuring the crash sequence, the baby was thrown from her arms.
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In addition, the mother was not given the individual preflight briefing prescribed by Canadian Aviation Regulations and the Perimeter Aviation operations manual but not in the Perimeter standard operating procedures that were in effect at the time of the accident, the report said. The absence of the seatback and the presence instead of “hard, sharp metal stairs, ceiling and cockpit partitions likely resulted in the lap-held infant coming into contact with hard, non-deformable interior surfaces during the dynamics of the impact sequence,” the report said. However, instead of an energy-absorbent seatback in front of the mother’s seat, the space held the airplane’s folded main door stairway, the report said. The seat was often used for adults holding infants or for passengers with limited mobility because it was near the main exit and there was extra room to move around.
The final TSB accident report said that the baby’s mother had been seated in the front row of the passenger cabin. The unrestrained baby was “ripped from his mother’s arms and killed,” said TSB Chair Kathy Fox. Both pilots and one passenger were seriously injured, and five other passengers received minor injuries in the crash, which destroyed the airplane.
The TSB said that the airplane “came in too high, too steep and too fast” during its approach and that it struck the ground 525 ft (160 m) beyond the end of the runway (see “ Frustration, Fatigue … and Stress”).Īll of the adults in the airplane were wearing seatbelts. The Perimeter Aviation Fairchild SA227-AC Metro III crashed as the flight crew attempted unsuccessfully to reject a landing in Sanikiluaq, Nunavut, on Dec. The aviation community must develop and mandate the use of appropriate child restraint systems to ensure that the youngest airline passengers are transported as safely as adults, the Transportation Safety Board of Canada (TSB) says in recommendations accompanying its final report on an accident that killed a lap-held, 6-month-old baby.
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