FAA to Order Replacement of Airline Seat Belts : Safety: The government acts after survivors say the O.C.-built restraints were difficult to unfasten after crash.

Acting swiftly, the Federal Aviation Administration said Monday that it will quickly demand that airlines replace seat belts made in Yorba Linda that could be difficult to unlatch in a crash.

Though the seat belts had passed previous federal safety tests, survivors of an Ohio commuter plane crash in January said that they had trouble releasing the belts before making their escape.

The National Transportation Safety Board earlier Monday had recommended that the FAA order airlines to replace the restraints “as expeditiously as possible,” and to modify test procedures on new belts to ensure that passengers can get out of them in an emergency.

The passenger lap belts in question are two models made in Yorba Linda by the HTL/Kin-tech division of Pacific Scientific Corp. About 27,000 of the restraints have been installed in various types of military and civilian aircraft since they were introduced in 1992, the safety board said.

They are installed primarily on commuter and private planes, the company said, although Alaska Airlines uses them on 18 of its Boeing 737-400s.

“We’re going to proceed with speedy replacement of all those buckles,” said Alaska Airlines spokesman Louis C. Cancelmi. “We want to make sure they are taken care of.”

Reached only hours after the safety board recommendations were delivered, FAA spokesman Robert Buckhorn in Washington said that his agency has decided to immediately start drafting an “airworthiness directive” to require replacement of the belts.

It was not immediately known, however, how much time the FAA would give aircraft owners to install replacements. Though such a step is rarely taken, the agency has the power to ground aircraft until safety-related improvements are made.

Newport Beach-based Pacific Scientific said it will replace all of the belts with improved models at no cost to aircraft owners. But Steve Breitzka, HTL/Kin-tech division president, said the replacements are still being tested and that his company needs the FAA to provide at least 30 days to make the switch.

The division makes a variety of restraints for aircraft. The belts in question cost about $20 a set, have buckles made of black, high-impact plastic and are sometimes imprinted with an airline logo.

They were rigorously tested before being sold, including having people release them in a pitch-black aircraft cabin like they might encounter under crash conditions, said Pacific Scientific Chairman Edgar Brower.

But troubles arose when a Jetstream J4101 commuter airliner operated by Atlantic Coast Airlines crashed into a concrete block building Jan. 7 while trying make an instrument landing in Gahanna, Ohio. The crash killed the three-member crew and two passengers. The sole survivors, a couple and their 5-year-old daughter, said they had trouble unbuckling their seat belts.

The daughter had so much trouble that she slid out from underneath the belt, which remained buckled, according to the safety board.

“There’s been no inference . . . that somebody perished because of the seat belt,” Brower said. “The people who did get out said they had a hard time unhooking their seat belts. They said they had to jiggle the seat belts to get out. When you’re in panic mode, you think about things differently.”

Crash investigators subsequently showed that when a person was buckled in, the buckle and flap could become misaligned and become difficult to detach.

Pacific Scientific showed the safety board and representatives of the airline and aircraft maker how their seat belt worked properly when strapped around a dummy, following the proper testing procedures.

But when a piece of foam was inserted between the dummy and the belt--representing a person’s soft belly--it put pressures on the buckle that prevented it from easily detaching. The safety board recommended that all future testing include a cushion to represent “soft abdominal tissue” in testing seat belts.

The safety board said that any airline using the seat belts before they are replaced should instruct passengers and crew on each flight how to keep them aligned, so they remain easy to unfasten.