

Safest Seat on a Plane - yigit
http://www.popularmechanics.com/technology/aviation/safety/4219452

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rmorrison
_That's the conclusion of an exclusive Popular Mechanics study that examined
every commercial jet crash in the United States, since 1971, that had both
fatalities and survivors. The raw data from these 20 accidents..._

Ha, 20 accidents since 1971... It'd probably be more helpful to the general
public for them to study which side of an ostrich it's safer to stand on.

~~~
Zot95
What is remarkable to me is that Southwest Airlines has yet to have a
passenger die in an aviation accident. And they carry about 100 million
passengers per year these days.

~~~
ehnus
Also remarkable is that Qantas has had, I believe, no fatal accidents since
1951.

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mjfern
It's amazing to me how much hysteria there is in the media when a plane
crashes, even a smaller aircraft, while little attention is paid to the number
of injuries and fatalities caused by automobile accidents.

According to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, over 37,000
people died in traffic crashes in the United States in 2008, which makes car
accidents the 10th leading cause of death. To put this in perspective, this
number of deaths is equivalent to 265 fully loaded Boeing 737 crashing, or one
every business day of every year.

And how about non-fatal injuries from auto accidents? Over 2.5 million drivers
and passengers (the same number of people living in the four states of
Wyoming, Vermont, North Dakota, and Alaska) were injured in 2008. This makes
traffic crashes the third leading cause of non-fatal injuries.

Of the injuries caused by traffic crashes, over 10% (or over 250,000) are
incapacitating, in which the injury prevents the injured person from walking,
driving, or normally continuing the activities the person was capable of
performing before the injury occurred.

In sum, in a 10 year window about 1% of the total US population is either
killed or seriously injured in a car accident.

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Bjoern
One thing which this article forgot was that also the position of the
emergency exit relative to your sitting place is important. If you don't sit
in the max. range of 7 rows [1] to it, you are likely to not survive a crash
due to people blocking each other, smoke and fire.

[1] [http://www.news.com.au/travel/travel-advice/how-to-
survive-a...](http://www.news.com.au/travel/travel-advice/how-to-survive-a-
plane-crash/story-e6frfqfr-1111115935414)

~~~
rbanffy
The two things I like best about emergency exit rows is that there is usually
a couple extra inches of legroom and that there are no children around.

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arch_hunter
They say that the seats in the back are more safe, presumably because fewer
people die in them, but are not the seats in the back usually only filled if
the plane is full? The plane would have to be somewhat full in order for
someone in the back of the plane to die in a crash. I am not saying that their
data is completely wrong, as I am not sure what their methodology was, but it
is at least suspect.

~~~
plorkyeran
My anecdotal evidence from looking at what seats are occupied when picking my
seat does not back up that idea at all. Passenger density tends to drop
slightly towards the back of the plane, but it's rare to have a plane that's
more than half full that has any completely empty rows.

Even if the back of the airplane tended to be empty, the article makes it
quite clear that they looked at deaths per occupied seat, not deaths per seat
overall.

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joubert
It'd be more useful to know which is the safest seat in a car, SUV, bus.

~~~
jarek
Yup.

I recall reading a study that said rear passenger seat (rear right hand side
in a RHS driving country) is the safest by a fair margin in a four or five
passenger vehicle. Not really surprising if you think about it.

I doubt there will be a high standard deviation for bus seats assuming you
mean 40-50 passenger long-distance buses. Somewhat away from the front, close
to an emergency exit, and away from any structural weaknesses (if known) is
probably your best bet.

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mdh
"that had both fatalities and survivors..."

Is this saying that they only considered crashes where at least 1 person
survived and at least 1 died? If so, doesn't this change the analysis from
'given you will be in a plane crash, how can you reduce your likelihood of
dying?' to 'given that you will be in a plane crash and SOMEONE will survive,
how can you increase the likelihood that it is you?'

I suspect the quotes at the beginning of the article are principally about the
former question (and are probably correct in that context).

~~~
lutorm
Yes. Clearly the chance of survival in a crash is not 50%, regardless where
you sit. In the vast majority of crashes either all die, or none do (in which
case it's probably not a "crash" but a forced landing). It would be
interesting to know what the overall chance of surviving an airliner crash is.

~~~
jarek
It would heavily depend on the definition of "crash" used.

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westbywest
It's unclear to me what use this information has to anyone, not mention the
potential ethical concerns of trying to promote this kind of research under
the guise of airline safety awareness.

Sure, I can believe that seats toward the rear of an aircraft tend to fair
better in crashes. It's actually rather obvious, hence the decision to place
the data recorders in the tail.

However, what use is this research to the vast majority of travelers who have
limited choice in where they may sit on a flight? Doesn't this sort of
research suggest telling such travelers, "well it sucks to be you, doesn't
it?" And what about the airlines' need to fill as many seats as possible meet
their bottom lines?

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metaguri
I remember reading once that on military planes, everyone sits backwards
because that is safer. I wonder if it is true?

~~~
Ernestas
Your lungs less likely to collapse on impact. I've heard somewhere, not sure
100%.

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fjabre
_There's been only one fatal jet crash in the U.S. in the last five-plus
years_

That can't be right.

~~~
InclinedPlane
It is. There have been 3 fatal commercial aviation accidents in that time
frame but the other 2 involved propeller craft:

<http://www.ntsb.gov/aviation/Paxfatal.htm>

Also note carefully: _in the US_. You might be thinking about other recent
fatal jet crashes that happened outside the US.

~~~
schammy
Interesting link. Ignoring 9/11, the last 10 years the safety has clearly gone
up very much compared the previous 20 years. 23 crashes in the 80's, 15 in the
90's, and just 7 in the last decade (again, ignoring 9/11).

On the flipside, every crash except 1 in the last 10 years has been 100%
fatal, whereas the previous 20 years there are quite a number of crashes with
a lot of survivors.

I dunno, I just find that interesting. :P

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nowsourcing
Quantas never crashed.

~~~
Zot95
Quantas has never had a _fatal_ crash, in one of their _jets_. Which is
different than what you...

Or was that just a Rain Man reference?

~~~
InclinedPlane
There is no "u" in Qantas. Also:

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Qantas_fatal_accidents>

~~~
blogimus
And no fatal crashes since the last fatal crash in 1951, before they had any
jet airliners.

