The National Transportation Safety Board in the US has opened up the debate over whether it is safe to allow small children to travel on their parent’s laps when travelling on-board an aircraft. The NTSB’s argument that it is not safe to allow any child, of any age, to travel on someone’s lap follows an investigation into the crash of a small plane in Montana last year.

All 14 passengers on board were killed when a Pilatus PC-12, en route to a ski resort in Butte, crashed into a cemetery close to the city’s airport. The investigation is ongoing, but the bodies of four of the seven children on board were found some distance from the aircraft wreckage, suggesting that they were not adequately restrained when the aircraft crashed.

Officials say it is unlikely that anyone could have survived the accident, but the NTSB would like to see a recommendation that all passengers’, whatever their age, have their own seat with adequate restraints.

However, the Federal Aviation Administration has refused to change the rules saying that it believes many families will not want to spend extra money on a seat for a baby. It claims that if they are made to do so it could force them to look at alternatives such as travelling by road, a statistically more dangerous way to travel than by air, according to the FAA.

Alison Duquette, spokesperson for the Administration, said the FAA would look at the NTSB’s proposals; she added that at present there were no plans to change the rules.