Flight Attendant reported a passenger refused to comply with instructions for her two children to use headphones and caused a disruption during the safety briefing.

ACN 1688615 2019-09 B737-700 Passenger Electronic Devices

TaxiPart 121

What is ASRS?

The Aviation Safety Reporting System is NASA's voluntary, confidential, non- punitive incident-reporting system, established 1976. Pilots, controllers, dispatchers, and maintenance technicians file reports describing safety- relevant events. NASA de-identifies every report before adding it to the public database. Reports are not investigated by NASA, the FAA, or the NTSB — they represent the reporter's perspective.

Pilot narrative

Verbatim from the de-identified NASA record. First-person account by the reporter. NASA strips identifying details (names, company, specific time); anonymization placeholders are ZZZ, X, Y.

During taxi, as I take my position as B [flight attendant], for the safety demo I could hear an electronic device rows away. As I approached I noticed two children in seats 10 A and C were watching their iPad without headphones. I informed the mom sitting in 10C they are required to wear headphones or it must be muted. She stated that this is their 3rd flight and no one has told them this before. I apologized that it was missed on a previous flight. I continued the safety demo and she said she would like to see it in writing. I told her I would need to get back to her as I am in the middle of the safety demo. A neighboring passenger showed it to her in the in flight magazine. After the demo, I secured the galley and it was time for takeoff. I was unable to go back to her at that time. After takeoff I checked the entertainment kit and no headphones were in the kit. Shortly after the seatbelt sign came off a passenger came to the back galley and handed me a paper with her contact info and told me she is seated in 11B is a witness to the exchange between the passenger and I and she wanted to make sure I was covered because she heard the passenger telling her son they "cannot use the iPad because the flight attendant yelled at her and said they couldn't use it." Also the other flight attendant said a passenger in front of 10C offered her an extra pair of headphones she had and the passenger refused and said her son was autistic and required special headphones. The work group could be consistent on their flights informing passengers about the headphone requirements. If there had been consistency this situation could've possibly been avoided as the passenger could have been prepared.

NASA classification — Anomalies

Flight Deck / Cabin / Aircraft Event
Deviation / Discrepancy - Procedural

NASA classification — Assessments

Contributing Factors / Situations: Company Policy · Procedure
Primary Problem: Procedure

ASRS reports are voluntarily submitted, de-identified by NASA, and represent the reporter's perspective. The presence of reports on a topic cannot be used to infer prevalence in the National Airspace System. The authoritative source is the NASA ASRS Database Online at asrs.arc.nasa.gov ↗.