Seat Belt Check

[teeteringhead]

On a recent flight something occurred to me that hadn't before.

As usual, several times the cabin crew went around checking seat belts were fastened. If I don't fasten my car seat belt, all sorts of flashes, captions, bells and whistles happen.

So why not something similar on airline seats?

"Passenger in 17C, fasten your seatbelt!"

I suppose the answer is "cost", but considering the amount of electrickery on all seats (let alone "turning left" seats), I'd have thought a little bit more would have been easy........

But I'm only a (retired military) pilot, not an engineer.........

[twb3]

Doable, but why? Would add a lot of wire plus a weight sensor on each seat and a microswitch to each seat belt. Seat belts and seats not so easy to switch out as now, and the design would have to account for seat belt extenders.

At a time when airlines have off-loaded magazines and newspapers to save weight, the weight penalty would be undesireable, as well as the cost.

After all that, the crew would still have to do the cabin walkthough anyway. They are checking for seat belts fastened, baggage properly stowed, overhead bins closed, and other safety items.

[419]

Not to mention the problems if one or more of the switches or sensors fails.

I think that most regular flyers have had experience of the entertainment systems failing or playing up and if this was to happen with a seat belt warning system, it might well lead to that seat or seats becoming unusable until fixed.

[ExXB]

Of course it could be done, but is there a good reason to do so?