As I flew into Seattle through some bumpy weather, clutching my baby daughter in my arms on the jam-packed flight, I began to picture her as a football. Torn out of my arms by sudden air turbulence. Bouncing loose around the cabin of the plane, her head battered on the seat backs and luggage bins.

It never happened - except in my mind. Every time I flew with her when she was a baby, the flight ended safely. And since U.S. regulations allow infants under age 2 to fly free on domestic flights if held on an adult's lap, I saved hundreds of dollars on each flight by not buying her a seat.

But I never quite shook the confusion, and the guilt, about not protecting her better while flying.

I do all I can to safeguard her in daily life. I religiously buckled her into a car seat wherever we drove (and still use a special booster seat even though she's now 5).

So shouldn't I have bought a plane ticket when she was a baby, thereby guaranteeing that I could use her car seat on the plane and give her the maximum protection?

Yes. But like many parents, I rationalized my way out of it.

Although by law children must be buckled into safety-restraint seats in vehicles, neither the U.S. government nor the airlines require that young children use such car seats aboard planes.

So with no rule to obey, I took the easy, and cheap, way out and held my daughter on my lap. Plane travel statistically is safer than car travel, I reasoned. Besides, if I had to buy an adult-fare plane seat for her, we often couldn't have afforded to go.

The flight attendants' fight

Some organizations, though, are working hard to get people like me to use car seats for babies aboard planes.

The Association of Flight Attendants is lobbying the federal government to make child safety-restraint seats mandatory on flights.

"An infant is the only thing on the plane that isn't restrained on take- off and landing," said Jill Gallagher, a spokeswoman for the 36,000-member group. "Coffee pots are put away in the galley. Luggage has to be put under the seats or overhead bins. Everything is buckled down - except for children on parents' laps."

The deaths of two lap-held children in U.S. air crashes in the last six years (in Iowa in 1989 and North Carolina last year) sharpened the debate on requiring the use of car seats in planes. But while there's lots of discussion, including a meeting last week between federal agencies, airlines and car-seat manufacturers, so far there's little action:

-- Some bills making car-seat use mandatory on planes have been introduced in Congress, but never yet made it to a vote.

-- The Air Transport Association, a trade group representing major U.S. airlines, urged the government to require car-seat use on planes after the infants died in the two crashes. But the association backtracked after Federal Aviation Administration studies showed that some forward-facing car seats don't work well in airplane seats. "The government really needs to determine which seats are safe - and then make a rule," said Tim Neale, an ATA spokesman.

-- The FAA - the government agency with the clout - so far has reasoned that the chances of injury to a child aboard an airline are so remote that requiring the use of car seats isn't justified. And, says the agency, making car seats mandatory (which means a plane seat would have to be bought) would increase families' travel costs so much that many would drive instead with a greater chance of injury on the roads than in the air. So while the FAA does recommend car-seat use aboard planes for children weighing up to 35 to 40 pounds, it doesn't require it.

"Arguably, the number of children whose lives would have been saved or injuries lessened by use of car seat (in planes) over the last 10 years is between one and five," said Van Gowty, who's in charge of biodynamics research for the FAA's Civil Aeromedical Institute in Oklahoma City. "Be that as it may, it's no secret that carrying a child on your lap unrestrained is not a very safe mode . . ."

About 16 percent of passengers on U.S. airlines travel with children under 18, according to the Air Transport Association. And each day thousands of those passengers fly with children under 2, holding them in their laps.

"I think if most parents realized the dangers of an accident or especially of air turbulence - which is much more common - they would choose to restrain their child (in a car seat aboard the plane)," said Gallagher, the flight attendants' spokeswoman.

"But car-seat use isn't really something the airlines recommend when you book a ticket or that is talked about in the on-board safety briefing. A lot of people just aren't educated about it."

The debate was clouded, though, after the FAA crash-test studies showed that some forward-facing car seats (used for children weighing from 20 to 40 pounds) couldn't be securely attached with the airline seat belts and also could pitch forward into the seats in front. And some car seats were simply too big to fit into the cramped coach seats of planes. However, rear-facing car seats, used for infants under 20 pounds, did well in the tests.

"The trouble is, the FAA never really named names. It never really said which car seats didn't pass," said Linda Galer of the Kirkland-based Safety Restraint Coalition, an educational and lobbying group for car-seat use. (For its part, the FAA says that not enough car-seat models have yet been tested for a list to be made public.)

"But the FAA basically did say the bottom line is that using a car seat is better than holding a kid on your lap. Let's face it. If there's a accident, you physically can't keep a child on your lap if the plane is tumbling. But if a kid is strapped into a car seat - even if it's not perfect - there's a much better chance of surviving," said Galer.

The parents' choice

Until the government or airlines make some rules, the decision - and confusion - on whether to use a car seat remains with parents.

For those who can't afford or don't want to buy a ticket for their infant, here are some suggestions:

-- Most U.S. airlines allow a car seat to be used for a child, without requiring a plane-seat purchase, if there's space aboard the plane. So travel at off-peak times for the best chance of snagging an empty seat. If the plane is full, the seat can be stowed as carry-on luggage. (Ask the airline about its car-seat rules.)

-- If two adults are traveling with a child under 2, try to book the window and aisle seats in a three-seat row and hope that the middle seat will stay empty so you can put the baby's car seat there.

-- It may not be as expensive to buy a plane seat for an infant as you think. The no-frills carriers have brought in low fares on many U.S. routes. And keep an eye out for air-fare sales ad 2-for-1 tickets.

-- Ask the airline if there's a discount for buying a seat for an infant so you can use a car seat. Southwest Airlines already offers such a fare for children under 2 to encourage use of car seats; others are considering it.

"It's an option for parents who want that safety," said Southwest spokeswoman Benjean Riedman. The infant fare - which gives the baby a plane seat and thus guarantees space for a car seat to be used - averages 35 to 50 percent off Southwest's adult, unrestricted fare (the most expensive fare). A new seat?

There is some hope for a solution to the car-seat confusion. The Canadian government, in co-operation with a manufacturer, has recently developed a child-safety seat specifically designed for airplane use.

"We tested it here and it worked very well," said Gowty of the FAA. The new child seat isn't yet commercially available. But perhaps airlines eventually could provide such a child seat - one that's standardized and safe - for babies and toddlers to use on planes. ----------------------------------------------------------------- Kristin Jackson's "Kidding Around" column is published on the first Sunday of each month. Comments and questions are welcome. Please write Kristin Jackson, Seattle Times, Travel Dept., P.O. Box 70, Seattle, WA 98111. E-mail: kjac-new@seatimes.com.