BABIES' SEATS ARE AIR SAFETY ISSUE

The Federal Aviation Administration requires that every airline passenger wear a seat belt during takeoffs and landings—everyone, that is, except children under the age of 2.

Parents have two options: They can hold children in their laps, or since 1982 they have been allowed to provide their own Government-certified child's safety seat. But very few parents use the safety seats on board because it generally means having to buy a ticket for children who would otherwise fly free of charge.

Given the F.A.A. policy, travelers may have assumed that unrestrained children face little safety risk on aircraft. In fact, an unrestrained passenger of any age faces a higher risk of death or injury in a survivable crash or severe turbulence than passengers who are strapped into safety seats or belts.

Three years ago the agency denied a citizen's petition to require safety restraints for very young children.

To determine the cost of the proposed regulation, however, the F.A.A. estimated that 1 percent of the 280 million passengers, or 28,000, were under the age of 2 in 1982. Consequently, their parents would have had to spend $56 million on airline tickets to accommodate child safety seats, which might have prevented in the agency's calculation, a loss of life valued at $500,000.

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