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Schroth Safety Products is a German-American company specializing in the manufacture of occupant protection systems for aircraft and land vehicles. Its development and manufacturing facilities are located in Arnsberg, Germany and Fort Lauderdale, Florida.

History
The company was founded on June 12, 1946 by Carl Friedrich Schroth (1909 - 1997) and Hildegard Schroth, née Tobler. Hildegard Schroth was a seamstress and registered a textile business with the allied military government of Germany. She began sewing garments and filter tubes for vehicle gas generators. Her motorcycle protective clothing was particularly successful. At the same time, her husband Carl Friedrich Schroth, who had previously been plant manager of Lueg's repair facility in the West German city of Bochum, produced baby strollers. Business flourished, so in 1953 the company moved to a larger facility in the present-day Arnsberg district of Hüsten.

Carl Friedrich Schroth was a rally driver. It bothered him that his co-driver couldn't read the maps properly because he was constantly being tossed around in his seat. Hence, Carl Schroth decided to develop a retaining strap made from roller shutter tape and coat buckles. The result was the first German seatbelt, a harness belt.



By 1984, the company had become the world's largest manufacturer of harness belts. In the following years, the company began a phase of strategic reorientation and gradually moved away from the mass market of consumer products. This was followed by the company’s entry into the aviation market in 1991. Schroth Safety Products holds numerous patents such as the Schroth RFR rotary buckle for aircraft and race cars. It was also the first company to produce a three-point belt with a push-button buckle for aircraft.[1]

In 2000, Schroth established an engineering and manufacturing facility in South Florida. At the beginning of the new millennium, Schroth was particularly represented with its products in niche markets. For example, the company developed and supplied safety systems for multiple types of aircraft and military vehicles. Schroth restraint systems were installed in almost all Airbus aircraft, in most civilian helicopters, and in numerous sports aircraft. On the automotive side of the business, Schroth produced 4-point and 6-point harness restraint systems for the leading manufacturers of high-end sports cars, super-cars, and hyper-cars. Customers included Porsche for their 911 GT2, 911 GT3, Carrera GT, and 918 series as well as Mercedes-AMG, BMW, Lamborghini, Bugatti, McLaren, and Aston-Martin.

In motorsport racing, the majority of NASCAR teams as well as teams in many other racing series rely on Schroth harness restraint systems. In 2001, for example, seven Formula 1 teams used restraint systems made by Schroth.[2]

Today, the majority of the company’s sales is generated in aerospace, where the company's products are particularly popular in commercial aviation.

In the commercial aviation sector, the company, for a long time, focused on restraint systems for pilots and crew. Since 2005, the company expanded more and more into passenger applications.[3] In 2018, Schroth became the first manufacturer to certify a 3-point seat belt with a pyrotechnic belt pretensioner for use on aircraft passenger seats.[4] Schroth also supplies an energy-absorbing cockpit door brake system for the Airbus A380 as well as the Airbus A350 to protect the flight crew against the effects of a rapid cockpit decompression.[5]

The company recorded sales of 14 million euros in 2005. In 2007, the figure was 20 million euros, and in 2008 it was already 27 million euros.[6] In 2006, Carl-Juergen Schroth, the founder’s son, sold the company to the American investor Armor Holdings Inc. In 2007, Armor Holdings was acquired by BAE Systems and the company was integrated into BAE System’s seat business. BAE Systems divested Schroth in 2012 and sold the company to Japanese automotive supplier Takata, a manufacturer of occupant protection systems for passenger cars.[7] Takata owned Schroth until February 2017 when they sold the company to TransDigm Group.[8] However, following an antitrust investigation by the U.S. Department of Justice, TransDigm had to sell Schroth again after only 11 months of ownership. Since the beginning of 2018, the majority of the company's shares have been owned by private equity fund Perusa Partners Fund 2, L.P.; a minority share was acquired by German and American Schroth managers as part of a management buyout.[9]



In the late 2010s, Schroth began developing special restraint systems for space travel. For the Crew Dragon space capsule of commercial spaceflight company SpaceX, Schroth developed harness restraint systems that withstand the high vibration and acceleration forces during a rocket launch.[10] The first manned space flight with Schroth harnesses took place in 2020 with NASA astronauts Douglas Hurley and Bob Behnken.

Weblinks

 * schroth.com