Office of Aerospace Medicine Technical Reports
FAA Office of Aerospace Medicine
Civil Aerospace Medical Institute
Report No: DOT/FAA/AM-89/3
Title and Subtitle: Injuries to seat occupants of light airplanes.
Report Date: February 1989
Authors: Colangelo EJ, Russell JC.
Abstract: A 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. Keywords: Aircraft accidents; Airplane seat failure; Impact injury; Impact acceleration; Aircraft seats; Autopsy; Aviation safety.
Key Words: aviation accidents, wounds and injuries, acceleration, aircraft seats, autopsy, aviation medicine, aviation safety, damage, energy levels, failure(mechanics), impact, impact acceleration, joints, restraint, passengers, aircraft, lightweight.
No. of Pages: 41
Civil Aerospace Medical Institute
Report No: DOT/FAA/AM-89/3
Title and Subtitle: Injuries to seat occupants of light airplanes.
Report Date: February 1989
Authors: Colangelo EJ, Russell JC.
Abstract: A 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. Keywords: Aircraft accidents; Airplane seat failure; Impact injury; Impact acceleration; Aircraft seats; Autopsy; Aviation safety.
Key Words: aviation accidents, wounds and injuries, acceleration, aircraft seats, autopsy, aviation medicine, aviation safety, damage, energy levels, failure(mechanics), impact, impact acceleration, joints, restraint, passengers, aircraft, lightweight.
No. of Pages: 41
Last updated: Friday, June 1, 2012