Injuries to Seat Occupants of Light Airplanes

Civil Aerospace Medical Institute1989PDFTech ReportColangelo, Eugene J.Russell, Julie C.Civil Aeromedical InstituteUnited States. Office of Aviation MedicineCivil Aerospace Medical InstituteUnited StatesAir transportation crashesSeatsRestraint systemsInjuriesCrash injuriesCrash injury researchAcceleration (Mechanics)Crash reportsInjury severityCase studiesAutopsiesAircraft accidents--Case studiesAirplanes--SeatsSafety harness (Aeronautics)Crash injuries--ResearchAcceleration (Mechanics)AutopsyDOT/FAA/AM-89/3A series of 55 light-airplane accidents was examined in an effort to demonstrate the role of seats in the genesis of injury in seat occupants. Good engineering, design of airplane seats is an important related issue which is not treated in this study. Case selection attempted to include only those events in which significant but not extreme accelerations occurred. Ten of the fifty-five cases involved joint failure of seats and restraint systems.The majority of the observations were provided by aviation medical examiners who were typically very highly motivated practitioners of medicine with special interests and accomplishments in aviation. The other cases were reported by FAA accident investigators.No reliable marker of energy level was found in the data collected to control the finding that large accelerations tend to injure people and damage seats as well as most other structures regardless of the other interrelationships that might be involved.119