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3
STANDARDS, REGULATIONS, AND INDUSTRY PRACTICES
The Air Commerce Act of 19261 established for
the first time federal responsibility for the regulation
of civil aviation in the United States. The basic
features of that act--registration, periodic examination,
rating of aircraft as to airworthiness, and rating of
the qualifications of crew members--were carried over
into the Federal Aviation Act of 1958.2° The Federal
Aviation Act established the Federal Aviation
Administration (FAA) as an independent agency
responsible for regulating the safety of aviation and
the Civil Aeronautics Board (CAB) as an independent
agency responsible for its economic regulation. Neither
act assigned direct responsibility for health effects
associated with air travel. For example, the statutory
basis for the regulation of smoking on aircraft by CAB
is Section 404(a) of the Federal Aviation Act, which
requires airlines to provide "safe and adequate service."
FAA was absorbed into the Department of Transportation
in 1966, and CAB was disbanded under the Airline
Deregulation Act of 19782 and the Civil Aeronautics
Board Sunset Act of 1984. Many CAB responsibilities
were transferred to the Office of the Secretary of
Transportation. Today, the Secretary of Transportation
is charged with responsibility for regulating air
commerce so as to promote in the best way its development
and safety in the United States and abroad by prescribing
safety regulations and standards. But no federal office
has direct responsibility for health effects associated
with air travel. (For a historical description of
relevant statutes, see Onstad and Roark. 3~)
FAA's effort to satisfy this mandate is accomplished
largely through the exercise of its regulatory powers in
the promulgation of Federal Aviation Regulations (FARs)
by headquarters in Washington, D.C., and the enforcement
of FARs by regional offices. FARs are adopted in
64
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65
accordance with rule-making procedures that provide for
public participation--from preliminary determination of
need, through development and publication, to final
promulgation and application (except in special
circumstances, such as safety emergencies that require
immediate action).
The processes by which FAA seeks to ensure the
inherent safety and airworthiness of aircraft are type
certification, which ensures that the design of
particular new aircraft complies with statutes and
applicable rules and regulations, and the establishment
of standards that must be met by manufacturers and air
carriers in the course of designing, producing,
operating, and maintaining aircraft. Accordingly, FARs
have been established that govern airworthiness
standards for commercial transport airplanes and
certification and operation of domestic, flag (foreign),
and supplemental air carriers and commercial operators
of large aircraft. (In keeping with the Committee's
charge, regulations that govern noncommercial private
aircraft and air taxi operators are not referred to
here.)
An earlier National Research Council study29
examined FARs and their implications for aircraft
construction and maintenance. This chapter focuses on
relevant sections of the FARs and their enforcement,
especially with respect to their influence on the
operating procedures of air carriers. Nevertheless, a
few comments concerning type certification are
appropriate.
FAA engineers cannot review each of the thousands of
drawings, calculations, reports, and tests involved in
type certification. But it must be certain that each
design for a new aircraft meets all appropriate
regulatory requirements. Thus, the system relies not
only on the FAA staff, but also on the assistance
rendered by aircraft company employees called designated
engineering representatives (DERs), who review the
design and design process to ensure, on behalf of FAA,
compliance with all aspects of the appropriate
regulations.
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66
Once an aircraft has received type certification,
the manufacturer may continue to produce aircraft
according to the approved design as long as it wishes or
until the type certification is amended by FM . There
is a strong incentive to produce according to the same
design, in that substantial modifications must be
submitted for certification. FARs often apply to
designs certified after promulgation. Sometimes,
however, a rule specifies that all aircraft type-
certified after a particular date must be brought into
compliance. For example, the requirement for escape-
route markings near the floor applies to all aircraft
certified after 1958 (virtually the entire commercial
fleet).
Other rules--mostly those governing air carriers, as
opposed to manufacturers--apply to all passenger-carrying
aircraft, regardless of the date of type certification;
an example is the requirement that smoke detectors and
automatic fire extinguishers be installed in all
lavatories. These generally specify a time limit for
compliance.
The pattern of interaction between FAA and the
aircraft manufacturers relies on mutual exchange and
cooperation. The pattern of interaction with the
carriers involves mainly continual surveillance and
occasional sanctions, so it places more emphasis on
inspection and enforcement than on review of design
specifications and production. In 1979, a new set of
regulations--Investigative and Enforcement Procedures of
the Federal Aviation Regulations2s--established a
mechanism for filing formal complaints and prescribed
enforcement procedures for issuance of orders of denial,
cease-and-desist orders, and orders of compliance.
These regulations include provisions for formal
fact-finding under the Federal Aviation Act of 1958, 2°
the Airport and Airway Development Act of 1970,3 and
the Hazardous Materials Transportation Act of 1974.22
This chapter reviews standards, regulations, and
operating procedures with respect to several problems
involving safety in the aircraft cabin. In particular,
it examines regulations with respect to air quality
itself, as well as regulations and guidelines that
govern crew and passenger response to fire,
Repressurization, medical emergency, and ditching and
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67
evacuation. (Smoke and toxic fumes associated with
cabin fires constitute one of the gravest hazards in
aircraft emergencies, and rapid Repressurization exposes
passengers and crew members to hypoxia. Fires and
Repressurization directly involve aspects of cabin air
quality and are addressed specifically in Chapter 4.)
The airlines, in conjunction with the manufacturers
and the FAA, establish minimal-equipment lists that
define allowable operations for situations when
equipment is inoperable. Compliance with this list
dictates operations that will meet FAA regulations.
Because relevant federal regulations necessarily leave
considerable discretion to the air carrier in
accommodating the different configurations of equipment
on various aircraft, typical procedures of mayor North
American air carriers with respect to these subjects are
described here, as are similarities to and differences
from foreign regulations. Most of the procedures and
equipment relevant to safety and health in aircraft
involve the behavior of passengers in some way, so the
adequacy and efficacy of the provision of passenger
safety information are also reviewed in this chapter
U.S. REGULATIONS AND STANDARDS
.
The "Cabin Safety Subject Index" prepared by the FAA
Civil Aeromedical Institute (CAMI) in January 1984
presents a long list of regulations and recommendations
pertaining to safety standards and operating requirements
of commercial aircraft.33 This extensive index
includes such items as the specification of who may be
admitted to the cockpit, the width of aisles giving
access to emergency exits, storage and use of galley
equipment during takeoff and landing, use of public-
address systems, and actions related to encounters
with air turbulence. From this long list of safety
provisions, three categories emerge as particularly
important for this study: standards for cabin air
quality, response to incidents and accidents (including
fires, Repressurization, and emergency landings), and
other operating procedures (including those in medical
emergencies).
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68
Two parts of the FAR are relevant to the construction
of aircraft and operation of commercial air carriers:
Part 121, "Certification and Operations: Domentic, Flag,
and Supplemental Air Carriers and Commercial Operators
of Large Aircraft,"~° and Part 25, "Airworthiness
Standards: Transport Category Airplanes."4 In addition,
some Air Carrier Operations Bulletins (ACOBs), Advisory
Circulars (ACs), and Airworthiness Directives (ADS)
issued by FAA include relevant directions or
recommendations for commercial air carrier operations.
Many ACOBs have been collected in a consolidated reprint
dated March 1985.37
VENTILATION
The airworthiness standards require that cockpit and
cabin air be free of harmful or hazardous concentrations
of gases or vapors.47 They specify that carbon
monoxide concentrations must be less than 1 part in
2D, 000 parts of air (50 ppm) and that carbon dioxide
concentrations must not exceed 3% by volume (sea-level
equivalent), or 30,000 ppm. The carbon monoxide and
carbon dioxide standards were incorporated into the
Federal Aviation Act of 1958. The carbon monoxide
standard apparently originated in requirements related
to exhausts from internal-combustion heaters.35 The
carbon dioxide standard first appeared an an amendment
to the Civil Air Regulations in 1952. 3 6 There are no
requirements for monitoring of carbon monoxide or carbon
dioxide in the cockpit or cabin during flight. Nor are
there explicit requirements concerning ventilation rates
for passenger cabins; the regulations state only that
"each passenger or crew compartment must be suitably
ventilated". 48
OZONE
Ozone contamination of aircraft cabins is a problem
during high-altitude or high-latitude flights. Ozone is
a known irritant and has been associated with some health
effects. The FARs specify that cabin ozone concentration
must not exceed 0.1 ppm by volume sea-level equivalent
(SLE) time-weighted average during any 3-h interval, nor
exceed 0.25 ppm (SLE) at any time. 9 This standard
is also found in the regulations governing air carriers,
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which state that the ozone concentration requirement may
be satisfied either by air treatment equipment (usually
a catalytic converter) that maintains cabin ozone
concentrations at or below this requirement or through
appropriate scheduling of flight plans on the basis of
average atmospheric ozone.9 This rule was promulgated
in 1980 on the basin of extensive review of data
concerning human and animal exposure to ozone and with
opportunity for public input to the rule-making process. 3 9
There is no FAA requirement for in-flight monitoring of
ozone (the United Kingdom requires monitoring on flights
above 49,000 ft). Compliance with the federal regulation
is based on performance of the air treatment equipment
at the time of installation or on the flying of routes
and altitudes that avoid high ozone concentrations.
FIRES
Onboard fire threatens passengers not only directly,
because of the possibility of burn injury and inhalation
of smoke and toxic fumes, but also indirectly, because
of the possibility of damage to the structural integrity
of the aircraft and its ability to remain in controlled
flight and of increased difficulty of escape once the
aircraft has landed and stopped. Much can be done to
reduce the ease of ignition, inhibit the propagation of
flame, and reduce smoke and toxic fumes by careful
selection and use of materials. ~
addressed separately in Chapter 4. The procedures and
equipment described in Appendix C deal with firefighting
by the crew and with passenger behavior in fire and
other emergencies.
These issues are
Of the regulations and recommendations referred to
in this chapter, those concerning fires are the most
extensive (see Table C-1. That was true even before
the recent promulgation of rules and recommendations
that followed the cabin fires near Cincinnati, Ohio on
June 2, 1983, and at Tampa International Airport on June
25, 1983. Additional regulations have been proposed or
implemented since those events.
Neither the regulations nor the recommendations
specify emergency procedures in case of fire. A few
recommendations are made--for example, to review
emergency procedures concerning operation of lower-lobe
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70
galleys (below the main floor) in Jumbo jets. Current
regulations specify some nonemergency procedures, such
as prohibition of smoking while the "no smoking" sign is
lighted3 2 or provisions for maintenance of fire-
susceptible areas.38 There is extensive prescription of
safety equipment with respect to fires, including
provisions for the prevention of fires ("no smoking"
signs in lavatoriesl4), for detection of fires (smoke
detectors in lavatories and galleys38), for extinguishing
of fires (automatic and hand fire extinguishers38), for
protective breathing equipment and firefighting training
for crew, 44 and for passenger escape from smoke-filled
cabins (floor-proximity escape-route markings, i.e.,
exit routes visible when there are no sources of light
more than 4 ft above the floored.
Crew training is to include not only initial
familiarization with equipment and procedures, but
periodic "hands-on" refreshers. Passengers are to be
briefed by announcements concerning smoking in the cabin
and in lavatories.8
DEPRESSURIZATION
Sudden Repressurization of the aircraft cabin
threatens passengers with hypoxia. The regulations and
standards for pressurization and Repressurization are
somewhat less extensive than those for fires (see Table
C-2. Emergency procedures are not specified, but
minimal flows of supplemental oxygen are specified in
terms of equipment, altitude, duration at altitude, and
other factors.
Equipment must be available to deliver supplemental
oxygen for crew and passengers whenever the airplane is
^~~~-~~= ~^ ~ -I ~ ~~~ ~~~ ~ For flight
up~raceu an an al~lcuce or over 10,000 ft.
above 25,000 ft. an automatic system to deploy
supplemental oxygen equipment in the event of sudden
Repressurization is requires; and portable oxygen
equipment with a 15-min supply must be provided for
cabin crew.
Proper use of continuous-flow passenger masks has
proved to be a satisfactory intermediate measure for
countering inadequate supply of oxygen for cabin
altitudes of up to 40,000 ft. Most of the problems
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~1
associated with these masks appear to be related to the
lack of timely or proper use--activating the oxygen flow
covering both nose and mouth, and ensuring a tight fit.
Because of their higher degree of physical activity,
cabin crew have only 15-20 s to don and activate masks
before adverse effects set in at 40,000 ft; passengers
have about 40 n. 2 3
Crew training includes both initial familiarization
and periodic refreshers with respect to supplemental
oxygen equipment and familiarization with medical
symptoms associated with hypoxia and Repressurization.
Before a flight above 2S,OOO ft. passengers must be
briefed on the use of supplemental oxygen equipment.
MEDICAL EMERGENCIES
A recent court decision reversed an FAA decision
that it did not have authority to make air carriers
supply their aircraft with medicine and emergency
medical equipment to treat general health emergencies6
and held that FAA can proceed with rule-making if it
deems such action to be advisable. In response, a rule
has been adopted that requires much more extensive
medical kits than had been required.40 This new rule
would considerably extend the scope of FAA regulations
with respect to medical emergencies.
No regulation of emergency procedures is specified
(see Table C-3~. With respect to nonemergency
procedures, conditions are determined under which a
passenger may carry and operate oxygen equipment for
medical reasons.
The content and number of first-aid kits for injuries
likely to occur in flight or in minor accidents are
specified. The new regulation40 adds the requirement of
a medical kit containing equipment and drugs required
for life support during medical emergencies (including
myocardial infarction, severe allergic reactions, acute
asthma, insulin shock, protracted seizures, and
childbirth).
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Crew training includes instruction in emergency
procedures and familiarization with first-aid equipment
and practices. The regulation requires familiarization
with the medical kit, although this does not include
training in all the medical procedures possible with the
equipment in the kit. It part, the purpose of the kit
is to enable passengers with appropriate medical training
to respond to medical emergencies, as well as to extend
the crew's capability to provide advanced firm-aid
techniques.
No special provisions are made for passenger
briefings concerning medical emergencies.
DITCHING AND EVACUATION
Because of the extensive requirements for
appropriate design of the airframe and ancillary
equipment, ditching and evacuation are subject to
extensive regulations and recommendations (see Table
C-4. Recommendations for emergency procedures include
suggestions for preparation of passengers for an
emergency landing. Procedural requirements include
assurance that the crew are fully familiar with operation
of emergency equipment and evaluation of proper bracing
positions with due regard to seat spacing.
Each passenger-carrying landplane emergency exit
(except over-the-wing exits) that is more than 6 ft from
the ground when the landing gear is extended must have
equipment for assisting occupants in descending.17 On
all flights that include extended over-water operation,
flotation devices must be within easy reach of all
passengers, and liferafts must be sufficient to
accommodate all occupants.!'
Crew training includes instruction and periodic
refreshers in emergency procedures and equipment for
each type of airplane. Passenger briefings are to
include the location of emergency exits and, in over-
water flights' the location of flotation devices and
methods of donning and inflating life preservers.
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73
ADDITIONAL PASSENGER BRIEFINGS
Before takeoff, passengers are to be briefed
concerning smoking, location of emergency exits, use of
safety belts (including how they are fastened and
unfastened), and location and use of required emergency
flotation devices (see Table C-5~. After takeoff, an
announcement must be made, immediately before or after
the seatbelt sign is turned off, that passengers should
keep their seatbelts fastened while seated.8
FOREIGN REGULATIONS
Many foreign aviation standards and regulations draw
heavily on the U.S. FARs , but there is also considerable
activity in the field of air safety elsewhere. We will
not attempt to include an exhaustive review of foreign
standards and regulations here. However, we will review
the European Civil Aviation Conference (ECAC) regulations
to illustrate typical similarities and differences
between U.S. and foreign regulations. For example, ECAC
develops, for application by its member states as their
own national regulations, "uniform requirements for the
following emergency and safety airborne equipment for
large aircraft: a) emergency oxygen equipment,
b) evacuation equipment, c) sea rescue and survival
equipment, and d) possible crash or fire survival
equipment."19 The ECAC Working Group on Cabin Safety
recently approved amendments to the ECAC regulations,
but these were not available at the time of the
Committee's deliberations.
Most ECAC requirements are based on the U.S. FARs.
However, there are differences.19 With respect to
fires, the ECAC regulations prohibit the use of dry
chemical extinguishers in the cockpit or in any
compartment not separated by a partition from the
cockpit. No attention is given to medical emergencies
in ECAC requirements, nor are standards recommended for
carbon monoxide, carbon dioxide, or ozone. However,
regulations in the United Kingdom require continuous
monitoring of ozone on all flights above 49,000 ft. (In
practice, this applies only to the Concorde and a few
corporate jets.)
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Some ECAC requirements with respect to ditching and
evacuation are different. An explicit formula is
provided for reducing the number of passengers and
seating distributions if an exit becomes inoperative at
an airport where it is not practical for it to be
repaired or replaced. Seat cushions are not considered
to be acceptable flotation devices.
There are also differences as to passenger briefing
and crew training and responsibilities. For example,
the oral briefing on the location of emergency exits may
be omitted if the subject is covered by oral reference
to the briefing cards. The number of airplane types in
which cabin crew are qualified at any particular time is
to be limited, and the crew is to receive training on
survival at sea, on uninhabited terrain, and in extreme
climatic conditions.
INDUSTRY OPERATING PROCEDURES
Airline operators are allowed considerable discretion
in complying with safety regulations. That is largely
inevitable, given the different configurations of
airframe and equipment, ranging, for example, from large
wide-body airplanes to smaller narrow aircraft. Most of
the relevant FARs apply to airplanes with capacity for 20
or more passengers. Thus, to some degree, cabin safety
depends on the standard operating procedures of the
individual carriers for the different types of airplanes.
The Committee attempted to elicit descriptions of
operating procedures from U.S. and foreign flag air
carriers. However, the response was not sufficient to
be representative of the industry as a whole. It does
appear, however, that ECU packs and other ventilation
equipment are generally to be fully activated in case of
smoke or fire. Table C-6 describes the firefighting
procedures and training of one foreign carrier.
From these examples, two issues emerge: the
appropriateness of FAA standards and regulations and the
degree to which the industry operating procedures satisfy
those standards and regulations. FAA regulations were
discussed earlier in this chapter. The determination of
whether the carriers' procedures comply is the
responsibility of FAA inspectors, who regularly inspect
various aspects of carrier operations, as described in
the next section.
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80
this situation has been studied, there is not a
sufficient scientific basis for specific policy
recommendations. Empirical research results do, however,
indicate some of the principal factors involved and
suggest experimental approaches that might be pursued to
develop a better understanding of the problems involved.
The basic problem--provision of routine safety
information that must be recalled under emergency
conditions--involves phenomena related to a variety of
research subjects, including interest and attention span,
comprehension and retention, and recall under stress. A
review of the vast literature on these and related topics
is beyond the scope of this study, so we focus here on
topics that appear to be most relevant to commercial air
travel.
The efficacy of alternative onboard presentations
(verbal announcements, videotape presentations, and
safety cards and placards) is not addressed here. A
recent study by NTSB addressed such comparisons in
detail; 3Q it drew from a series of theoretically
unrelated empirical studies of immediate relevance to
the conditions of alternative onboard announcements.
FACTORS INFLUENCING PASSENGER EMERGENCY BEHAVIOR
NTSB studies have focused on "maladaptive passenger
behavior" in emergencies, ranging from inability to
perform such emergency tasks as donning a lifevest to
total inaction. The results suggested several factors
that lead to such behavior: the inappropriateness or
inaccuracy of information given to passengers, passenger
indifference to safety information, the belief
apparently held by some passengers that they are immune
to injury, and the common belief that airplane accidents
are not survivable and that passengers consequently have
no influence on whether they will survive an accident.~°
During the 1970s, McDonnell Douglas studied passenger
behavior in actual emergency situations and proposed
three methods to stimulate improvement: learning by
trial and error, training or instruction, and clear and
forceful instructions and action by the crew. McDonnell
Douglas concluded that the combination of forceful cabin
crew leadership with provision of passenger instruction
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in more effective than either alone.30 That is an
important finding, especially because the study examined
the specific situation of passenger briefings and
response in the setting of commercial aircraft. But the
finding is limited, because it is not related to a more
general model of information communication,
comprehension, and recall.
ATTENTION, COMPREHENSION, AND RECALL UNDER STRESS
Industry observers have often suggested that a mild
degree of anxiety increases the attention given to safety
briefings and instruction cards. Too much anxiety and
fear, however, often result in a "disaster syndrome" in
which psychologic blocking results in inaction or
inappropriate response. Berkun and others presented
briefing-card information to three groups of subjects.7
Those in group 1 took off, were informed during the
flight that they would have to perform an emergency
ditching operation, and were then tested in flight on
the briefing-card information. Those in group 2 took
off, were not informed of an impending emergency, and
were tested in flight on the same information. Subjects
in group 3 remained on the ground, but were also tested.
Time between presentation and tenting was the same for
all groups. Results showed that group 1 performed
significantly worse than group 2, and group 2
significantly worse than group 3.
Thone results correspond to a model of the effect of
emotion on the use of information--a model that relies
on extensive animal and human experimental results., 6
The model predicts that, in heightened emotional states
(in this case anxiety), a subject reduces the amount of
attention given to "peripheral" cues and focuses on cues
of most central importance. In a mild state of anxiety,
for example, a person might ignore other activities in
the cabin and attend to the safety announcement; this
ought to result in an increase in retention and response.
With greater anxiety, such as the prospect of ditching,
a greater number of peripheral mental cues are ignored.
perhaps even including some that are relevant for
appropriate response. In other words, increasing
anxiety eventually results in degeneration of response.
According to this model, a course of action is
facilitated or disrupted by emotion, depending on the
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complexity of the action and on the cues attended to in
the particular emotional state.
The notion of facilitation or disruption of
attention, comprehension, recall, and action by
heightened emotion of various degrees appears to apply
to many of the studies that have been conducted in the
airline industry. For example, results of a McDonnell
Douglas study suggested that explicit emergency
evacuation instructions in a preflight briefing would
not cause anxiety, but rather would reduce anxiety if
properly presented. 5 However, interviews of survivors
of aircraft accidents suggested that, of the four common
responses to the extreme stress of emergency situations--
strengthening of resources, attacking the threat,
avoiding it, or remaining inactive--the most common
response by passengers during aircraft emergencies was
inaction. 2 6
General psychologic research has suggested that under
such conditions of high stress greater proficiency is
maintained for the simplest perceptual-motor tasks. But
the airline passenger must perform rather complex tasks
in emergency situations--correctly donning a life
preserver while seated with the seatbelt fastened and
donning an oxygen mask, activating the oxygen flow, and
ensuring a tight fit--and perform them properly on the
first try under conditions of extreme emotional stress.
The aim of passenger safety briefings is not subject to
simple resolution. Presentation of information under
routine conditions in such a way as to ensure recall
under extreme emotional stress is a difficult task.
IMPROVING PASSENGER SAFETY BRIEFINGS
Although the results of studies noted above are
insufficient to provide specific recommendations about
how to increase the adequacy and efficacy of the
provision of passenger safety information, one possible
improvement is apparent. Under conditions of stress, a
person is more likely to be able to perform perceptual-
motor operations that have been well learned. Therefore,
it would probably be most efficacious to provide
passengers an opportunity to learn how to don masks and
life preservers. The advisability of providing
passengers ~ greater opportunity to familiarize
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themselves with the opening of escape windows and doors
is less clear. In at least one instance, passengers
have opened emergency escape doors when there was an
engine fire and the crew judged emergency evacuation of
the aircraft to be unnecessary.
Hands-on training might be impracticable, because of
the variations in equipment among various aircraft. A
cost-effective alternative might be to provide detailed
video presentations of safety procedures in waiting
lounges. It is well within the capability of current
technology to store presentations describing the various
aircraft used by a given airline, or even several
airlines, to be viewed before passengers board a
particular aircraft. Such safety information might be
presented in a number of different formats. For example,
it might be presented "on demand," so an to obtain a
measure of the flying public's awareness and interest
or it might be presented in conjunction with simple
learning games, which could be used both to reinforce
the information and to measure its understandability.
That approach would be aimed at increasing the
overall understanding of safety procedures in the flying
public. The research results do not suggest an advantage
associated with the presentation of all relevant
information to every passenger on every flight.
_ However,
it ts obvious that all essential information should be
available to any passenger who wants it. Video
presentations in waiting lounges might have the double
advantage of presenting relevant information in
considerably greater detail than is commonly the case
today and presenting it in a manner that is flexible
enough to serve the needs of both frequent fliers and
neophytes.
Again, the basic elements of the problem are
apparent: the difficulty in attracting and keeping
passenger attention, the difficulty in communicating
complicated perceptual-motor procedures, and the latent
difficulty in recalling this information under conditions
of extreme stress. The suggested approach does not
remove any of these difficulties, but does present the
possibility of developing incremental improvements that
would permit gradual increases in theoretical and
empirical understanding of the complex phenomena
involved.
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OVERVIEW
Cabin safety procedures, equipment, and passenger
information have all received considerable attention and
are the subject of many federal regulations and
guidelines But the regulations necessarily leave
considerable discretion to individual air carriers,
because of variations in the configuration of the
equipment in aircraft. Therefore, in accordance with
the regulations, airlines have developed equipment and
procedures that they feel are appropriate for routine
conditions and emergencies in air travel. This chapter
has reviewed standards, regulations, and procedures that
have been developed by FAA and the industry.
A discussion of cabin safety would be incomplete
without reference to a number of recent actions of FAA.
In particular, FAA has proposed a rule concerning the
use of specific materials in cargo and baggage
compartments; 4 ~ promulgated a final rule requiring
emergency escape-path markings that are visible when all
sources of cabin lighting more than 4 it above the floor
are obscured by smoke; 42 promulgated a final rule
requiring air carriers to provide medical kits containing
equipment and drugs for use in the treatment of injuries
or medical conditions that occur during flight; 40
proposed a rule on fire protection requirements for
cargo or baggage compartments that includes provision
for at least two Halon extinguishers and for inspections
and repairs of lavatory electric components on some
aircraft; 38 proposed a rule establishing new fire test
criteria for type certification of aircraft, which
requires cabin interiors to correspond with the criteria,
including the retrofitting of aircraft constructed since
1958~43 and proposed a rule governing the availability
and performance of breathing devices to protect the crew
from smoke and toxic fumes. 44 In addition to these
regulatory actions, FAA is conducting research in related
subjects. 2 ~
It appears advisable to review the advantages and
disadvantages of a carefully designed program of
passenger information aimed at developing a better
understanding of passenger response to safety
instructions. Consideration should be given to
conducting quizzes during flight to see, for example,
what proportion of passengers have retained the key
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features of the safety briefings. Empirical research on
the specific conditions of air travel can be combined
with more general psychological evidence in ways that
suggest an approach that ought to reveal useful
scientific data while permitting incremental improvements
over current practice. Although the suggestions
presented in this chapter are motivated principally by a
desire to improve passenger recall under the heightened
stress of emergencies, they should also permit the
collection of data that would illuminate the issues of
attracting and keeping passenger attention and of
comprehension of safety material presented.
REFERENCES
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~-~ ~ __,, ~ ~ ~ C ~. ~A.L ~ ~/V ~ &&C
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Representative terms from entire chapter:
air carriers
