After the Alaska Airlines incident, should parents be concerned about flight safety?

Beth Luberecki
Updated ·6 min read
3

I flew from California to Florida the day after a piece of fuselage blew out from the side of Alaska Airlines Flight 1282 after taking off from Portland, Oregon. I tried not to think of the images I’d seen of the gaping hole in that Alaska Airlines plane, nor the many family vacations when I’d flown with my now 17-year-old daughter on my lap when she was a toddler under 2 years old.

An Oregon mom traveling with her 15-year-old son on the Alaska Airlines flight described her experience on board to The Seattle Times, saying she "was probably as filled with adrenaline as I’ve ever been in my life." The pair were seated in the row just in front of where the piece of fuselage flew off, and the mother saw her son’s seat get pulled back toward the hole and its headrest ripped off.

"I reached over and grabbed his body and pulled him towards me over the armrest," she told the Seattle newspaper. "I did not realize until after the flight that his clothing had been torn off of his upper body."

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Should parents be concerned about safety when flying with their children?

This kind of experience is the stuff of parental nightmares when it comes to flying with kids. But it’s also newsworthy because it’s so uncommon. So, after the incident aboard Alaska Airlines Flight 1282 – and the incident a few days before that when a Japan Airlines plane caught fire after colliding with a Coast Guard plane while landing at Tokyo’s Haneda Airport – should parents be concerned about safety when flying with their children?

"Whenever we have these kinds of incidents that we’ve seen recently, of course, it’s natural for people to be concerned about it," said Hassan Shahidi, president and CEO of the Flight Safety Foundation, an international, independent nonprofit focused on aviation safety. "But the message here is that commercial aviation in general, and especially in the United States, is extremely safe. You’ve got millions of flights carrying billions of passengers operating safely around the world every year."

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A door plug area of an Alaska Airlines Boeing 737 Max 9 aircraft awaits inspection with paneling removed at the airline's facilities at Seattle-Tacoma International Airport on Jan. 10.
A door plug area of an Alaska Airlines Boeing 737 Max 9 aircraft awaits inspection with paneling removed at the airline's facilities at Seattle-Tacoma International Airport on Jan. 10.

If parents are feeling a little extra anxious these days, though, there are some steps they can take to keep their families as safe as possible when flying. The biggest one is not holding children under two on your lap during a flight.

While that’s technically allowed, the Federal Aviation Administration doesn’t recommend it. On its Flying with Children webpage, the FAA says, "The safest place for your child under the age of two on a U.S. airplane is in an approved child restraint system (CRS) or device, not in your lap."

Yes, it may be tempting to save money on a seat for your little one. But in the event of severe turbulence or a rare occurrence like what happened on the Alaska Airlines flight, you’d rather they be safely strapped into a seat than just secured by your arms and your ability to hold on tight in a tough situation.

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Anthony Brickhouse, an associate professor in the College of Aviation at Embry‑Riddle Aeronautical University and director of the university’s Aerospace Forensics Laboratory, hopes the latest incident brings a long-desired change to the rules around airline passengers under 2.

"I think this accident is a wakeup call to the industry, and I’m happy that these topics are being talked about," he said. "It’s unfortunate what happened, but hopefully talking about these topics can allow us to get better."

Brickhouse points out that children under a certain weight and age need to be in appropriate seats to ride in a car, and flying is a more extreme version of travel. "When you look at an aircraft, it travels significantly faster than a car, and at impact, the forces are going to be significantly worse. So, just from a commonsense perspective, it just bothers me as a safety professional that in 2024, lap children are still legal."

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The FAA’s Flying with Children page offers detailed information on how to confirm that your CRS is certified for use in aircraft and how to install it on the plane. You’ll also want to verify information about approved child restraint systems for the specific airline you’re flying.

Once the whole family is seated on the plane, both experts stress the importance of paying attention to the crew’s preflight safety briefing, no matter how many times you’ve heard it before. "Aircraft are not all the same – there are different models, different exit doors," Shahidi said.

Locate the emergency exit doors so you’re prepared for a worst-case scenario. "I actually recommend counting the rows to the emergency exit, so in case you can’t see, you can find your way out," Brickhouse said. "And note that the closest exit may be behind you."

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Should the oxygen masks get deployed during your flight, yes, put your own on before assisting your children. "You need to get oxygen first, so in case of this rare event, you have oxygen so you can help your child," Shahidi added.

Keep seat belts fastened securely around your waist the entire flight, except for when you need to use the restroom. "There is turbulence that happens: Some turbulence is very mild, some is not as mild," Shahidi said. "When you have your seatbelt on, you’re secure. There are injuries that happen every year with turbulence, and the majority of them ... are when somebody is not restrained in a seat belt."

If recent incidents have made your child newly nervous about flying, have a conversation with them about it. "The best thing is to talk about it," Shahidi said. "Talk about those anxieties, and just reassure children that flying is safe." Bringing some favorite books, toys, games, and snacks on the plane can also help make kids feel more relaxed.

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"Flying is still the safest mode of transportation, even though we just came out of a very scary event," Brickhouse reinforced. "The National Transportation Safety Board is an outstanding organization. It’s going to find out exactly what happened and let the industry know what changes need to be made to prevent it from happening again."

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The views and opinions expressed in this column are the author’s and do not necessarily reflect those of USA TODAY.

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This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Flying stress: What parents should know after Alaska Airlines incident