
Decoding the Design of In-Flight Seat Belts - bcaulfield
https://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/why-are-airplane-seatbelts-so-weird
======
everdev
It's surprising that seatbelts have saved anyone at all, but that does seem to
be the case.

There was a flight to Hawaii where the roof ripped off and everyone saved
except for 1 airline stewardess:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aloha_Airlines_Flight_243](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aloha_Airlines_Flight_243)

> All the passengers were in their seats and belted during depressurization.

And the crash in SF where two people were ejected from their seats:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Asiana_Airlines_Flight_214](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Asiana_Airlines_Flight_214)

> Neither victim was using her seatbelt. It is likely that these passengers
> would have remained in the cabin and survived if they had been wearing their
> seatbelts

~~~
ef4
They save people from serious injury much more frequently than that. Extreme
turbulence that can smash you against the ceiling happens not infrequently.

~~~
ThinkingGuy
Not to mention the injuries prevented by your unsecured body not being thrown
around and landing on another passenger.

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ptx

      > They were not found in early cars, and remained at best
      > an option in certain forward-thinking automaker lines,
      > most notably Saab, until the late 1950s.
    

Volvo should be of similar notability, since they were the ones who introduced
the three-point seat belt (in 1959) and made the patent available for free to
other car makers. [1]

[1]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Volvo_Cars#Safety](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Volvo_Cars#Safety)

------
jandrese
So the article basically says that until there is a crash and someone sues the
airlines and/or manufacturers because a loved one provably died when a three
point harness would have saved their life, this isn't going to change. The
damage award from the lawsuit would have to exceed the cost of upgrading to
three point harnesses to change the calculus.

Such a lawsuit is unlikely to happen at this point because air travel has
become so ridiculously safe that airliners never crash anymore, especially in
the US.

~~~
everdev
And it seems unlikely that the added benefit of a three point harness would be
the difference between life and death or injury and safety. If an airplane is
crashing it's typically with enough impact that a three point harness won't
save you.

~~~
rowyourboat
That's a myth. Most airplane crashes are survivable, they just don't garner
any media attention. In most cases, the planes don't just nosedive into the
ground, they veer off the runway or crash into obstacles while on the ground.

[https://www.ntsb.gov/news/press-
releases/Pages/NTSB_releases...](https://www.ntsb.gov/news/press-
releases/Pages/NTSB_releases_statistics_on_aircraft_accident_survivability.aspx)

It is very much conceivable that a better harness would improve the survival
rates and lower injuries further.

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zbobet2012
Am I the only one who wants a five point harness so I can lean forward into
the harness and sleep in my chair? I currently use the tray table for this and
it's less than optimal.

~~~
madaxe_again
I used to do this as a kid, but the combination of decreasing seat pitch and a
growing spine had led to this no longer being possible for me.

Also, unless youre also strapping your head down, holy neck pain, batman.

~~~
saurik
Maybe we can just sit in the chair, get a catheter inserted, and then be
covered in an expanding foam that would completely seal us into the seat and
make sure that we could finally get the sleep we deserve (and probably have no
issue surving a devastating plane crash on land with no injury at all...
assuming we had a good way to get out of the foam once we noticed the plan had
crashed before the foam caught on fire).

------
basejumping
Indeed they help you most often during turbulence, I think that's more common
than a crash. I was traveling recently with my 2 children, 1 and 2.5 yr old.
When the child is over 2 he needs to stay on his own seat, but the seat belt
does not shrink to the size of the child. I think it was at least 10cm loose
and they refused to give us a baby seatbelt because of rules. Simply stupid,
with all the safety measures that you have in a plane why is this being
overlooked?

~~~
jandrese
This is a little surprising to me since all of the airline seatbelts I've ever
seen could be pulled right up against the seat by pulling far enough on the
loose end. Are you saying the buckle hit the end of the strap before the kid
was fully secured?

~~~
basejumping
Yup, that's right. It was a Transavia flight

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M_Bakhtiari
I get the speculation that we might be better off with three- or five-point
harnesses, but I don't get the complaints about the design of the belt and
buckle itself. It's bad because it's out of style or something?

I can't think of a more user-friendly solution to the problem it's actually
trying to solve. I wouldn't trade the reel system with low profile plastic-
encased push-button buckles in my car for it, but I'm not interested in
digging around between the cushions for whatever proprietary design the
particular cabin manufacturer of the plane I'm on has come up with, I want
something standard that's right in front of me in plain view. And I don't want
a reel system either. Every reel system made for public use I've seen has had
way too much friction and way too little spring tension to even make sense.
And not being able to see the state of the belt and reel tensioning doesn't
seem very safe either.

------
madaxe_again
There's another reason for having belts that they don't mention: body
identification. If bodies are still strapped to seats they at least have a
chance of determining where to send which remains. Without, it'd be nigh on
impossible, which would be a compounding PR nightmare on top of the obvious PR
nightmare of an aviation disaster.

Source is my mum, who was an air stewardess for a decade, and explained this
to me when I questioned the purpose (she also mentioned turbulence etc., as
the article does).

------
Bitcoin_McPonzi
What always puzzles me are those seat-belt extenders. I've seen passengers on
planes that probably couldn't fit through an overwing exit door without
getting stuck. Think how dangerous that could be! The seatbelts should be long
enough to accomodate the largest passenger who can safely fit in a seat (and
I'm pretty sure they are -- they're already huge) and there should be no
extenders.

~~~
whafro
Apparently when there are issues with a belt, they just cut it off and
reattach the clip. So belts can vary fairly widely (see what I did there?) in
terms of size, and sometimes you have a relatively medium-sized person who
runs into a really short belt and needs an extender.

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iicc
Maybe crashing with a 2 point belt in the brace position is better than
crashing with a 3 point belt without the brace position?

~~~
everdev
They didn't test a 3-point harness but according to MythBusters, the brace
position is better than unbraced:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ClX2yldxZPw](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ClX2yldxZPw)

------
fnord77
read someplace a long time ago that rear-facing seats in planes are safer than
front-facing seats, but airlines didn't think pax would like that.

~~~
generalh0rse
Definitely safer, but it would require seat manufacturers and aircraft
interiors to re-design all of their products. This is probably part of the
"passengers won't like it" excuse (lobby?). An aft-facing seat back would be
very different structurally from a forward-facing seat back, the former
absorbing impact load from a face slamming into it (current seat backs are
designed to crumple/absorb load in a crash). When it comes down to it, a three
point seat belt is probably cheaper to integrate on all economy seats if the
FAA starts requiring improved passenger safety, as opposed to throwing years
of crash test research, engineering, and products out the window and starting
from scratch. The industry is pretty entrenched in forward-facing seating.

------
megaman22
I'm jammed in so tight on almost all economy seats that there'd have to be
some serious turbulence to unseat me. Even if the plane flipped completely,
I'd move about four inches until I hit the overhead storage bins...

Everything about air travel is a comedy of the absurd, and being admonished to
buckle up is just one more thing in the pile.

~~~
shaki-dora
Yes, your head would hit the overhead bin after 4 inches. Unfortunately, your
body would do that inertia thing and continue, folding you tightly somewhere
along your neck.

This has happened, not just during crashes but far more often with
turbulences.

Regarding economy class: this is simply the result of people‘s preferences, as
expressed by their buying choices. With all the complaints you can hear and
read, you’d think those exit seats or economy+ tickets would sell like fresh
bread. But every time I check in online, even when most seats are gone, most
of the exit seats (about twice the leg room for 20$ extra) are still
available.

~~~
switch007
> Regarding economy class: this is simply the result of people‘s preferences,
> as expressed by their buying choices

If you take something away first, then nobody can buy it, you can then say
"look, nobody's buying it!".

For example: for the past 5-6 years EU airlines have made intra-europe
business class much more like economy class. BA used to have 34" pitch in
short-haul business. That went I think 3 years ago. But I'd be willing to pay
up to £500 for that now. Can I buy it? No - the majority airlines have done
the same.

It's now very easy for BA/Lufthansa/Air France/Iberia etc to say "that's what
our customers wanted" because you can't now pay for it even if you want it.

~~~
mikeash
The comment you’re replying to has an example of a universally available
option for more room that few people actually take, so I really don’t think
your explanation works.

