Airbags on planes

Yeah they won’t be much good in a midair collision now, will they?

Confirmed that the Virgin style herring bone lie flat class seats have an airbag installed in the seatbelt for additional protection. Not quite the same usage as in the link above but certainly flying today on two airlines that I know of.

Interesting. I did not know aircraft already operated with airbags.

Are these only in first class, or also in economy class? In the (probably rare) case of infants flying, can the airbag be disabled? What steps have been taken to ensure these airbags do not inflate in heavy turbulance? Are they always active or only below a certain flightlevel?

Pee Dee

Your problem is you took one extreme example and then extended it to ‘Most pax are dead… etc’ which is simply a load of tosh.

Whatever you saw on ‘Discovery’ the NTSB report contains the following

About 0847:26, the FDR recorded a maximum right roll of 68º and a maximum vertical acceleration of 1.9 Gs. …. The CVR recording ended at 0847:28.1.

As Flatcat has pointed out belts and airbags won’t save anybody from a catstrophic airframe failure. It is not what they are there for. But ‘Most’ passenger casualties do not result from airframe failure.

Moggy

I don’t think the airbag is there to protect you in the event of catastrophic failure of the airframe. At that point there is little any aircraft designer can do to protect you (and I suspect not even considered in the design of the aircraft, their job is to ensure it doesn’t get to that point in the first place). However correctly designed and installed airbags could protect both passenger and crew during hard landings, overruns, gear ups etc. Look at cabin crew seats, they are squeezed in where possible, generally in the vicinity of a main exit, and are of interesting construction. If they fail to protect the crew in the event of an incident then potentially you end up with a blocked exit and an incapcitated crew member (remember, in the unlikley event of an emergency, follow your crew, they are trained what to do:) ). Therefore the installation of airbags in these locations as well as the other emergency exits make sense in the overall view of improving the survivability rate and reducing injury in those potentially survivable crashes.

No way a display pilot pulls the 25+g as experienced in the sort of spin of a dying aeroplane.
The New York A300 crash where the whole fin snapped due to mis-use of the pedals, the pax at the extremities from the CofG were dead from broken necks before impact. I read this in an Airbus report and it was later on Air Crash investigation on Discovery..or a similar programme on Discovery.
Like I said, I don’t know the % of this. But, a car-like airbag in an aircraft seems as much use, as praying to a God.

… most pax are dead from a whiplashed broken neck a long time before impact, very especially if a spin is involved.

Ah, that would then account for all the dead display pilots caused by intentional spinning in competition and displays?

Simply not true.

Even where bombs have ripped aircraft apart at high altitude numbers of the passengers died on impact with the ground, some even taking a short while to die after the impact.

Moggy

I would like to know how many (% of total) A/c crashed at a survivable speed and G force. In the case of the “Into the ground like a dart” scenario, most pax are dead from a whiplashed broken neck a long time before impact, very especially if a spin is involved.

Also, imagine the pikey’s on the Easyjet. It’s too much of a temptation for them to play with it.

Weight is a major hold up. When OEM manufacturers are prepared to pay min $500 (Single source weight saving) and max $3,000 (Multi-source wieght saving) extra cost per lb saved in the T.O.W. of any item then you can just imagine them adding hundreds of kilos of gas bottles etc. Yeah, right.

Confirmed that the Virgin style herring bone lie flat class seats have an airbag installed in the seatbelt for additional protection. Not quite the same usage as in the link above but certainly flying today on two airlines that I know of.

Airbag is installed in the left hand seatbelt as viewed in the photo

Virgin A340’s have been operating with airbags for at least 8 years. I believe the B747’s have too.

I am not sure if the security regulators will even allow this! Note I specifically say security regulators, not safety regulators.

An airbag is basically an explosive that is triggered at certain G-loads. It is already well known that airbags can be stolen from cars. What’s to stop a would-be terrorist from grabbing the airbag and using the explosives in it. I´m not saying it´s likely, but it is a contingency that will have to be taken into account.

Add to that the problem that not every passenger is the same, but every passenger does sit in the same type of seat. In a car the seat is positioned to ideally suit the driver/passenger. This can not be done in a plane. You can move the seatback and armrest, but that’s where it ends in economy class. For a tall person the airbag might be too low, for a small person (child) the airbag too high. In a car the airbag can be disabled for childrens safety. In a plane this would be very hard to do, in particular on a 737/320 sized plane doing several trips a day.

And then there is of course also the added financial hurdle. Installation, maintenance and weight.

As some of you know I work for a large company in automotive shipping. I move parts and pieces for GM, Ford, JLR… you name it. This includes moving airbags. I can therefor tell with certainty that these goods are treated as haz-mat (explosives / class 9 UN3268). This also means that airbags are NOT allowed on passenger planes. A freight plane is acceptable I believe, but I am not 100% sure on that as we ship the airbags by ship.

Also, be honest here, would you feel comfortable knowing there are explosives tucked away in your headrest or seatback? Cause where else do you want to put them? It’s fair enough to have them in the dashboard where the explosives can be aimed away towards the engine. But in a plane, your airbag will leave a mark on the guy in the seat in front of you!

A correctly sized airbag will probably help reduce serious blunt trauma, but there is still a lot of research to be done to reduce or eliminate post crash fire. They don’t seem to be near a solution to that one.