5 ms·

Safest Seat on a Plane

29 points by yigit 17y ago

rmorrison 17y ago
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.
- teye 17y ago
  How many would there need to be to get your attention?
  - henrikschroder 17y ago
    The probability of dying in an air crash is in the order of 10 million to one. Being killed by lightning is about 1 million to one, being killed in a car crash is about 20000 to one. So if you spend time thinking about which seat you're going to sit in when you fly to minimize your risk of dying, you are completely wasting your time.
    - pmiller2 17y ago
      All true, but I can't say taking a couple of minutes to read this article, then using the information in the future is "completely wasting" time.
      - potatolicious 17y ago
        But how would you use this information? There are other consideration besides safety when choosing a seat (e.g., proximity to a lavatory, first/business class amenities, legroom, etc). When you bring "chances of survival in a plane crash" into this equation without considering just how astronomically low your odds of an accident are, it's time wasted. IMHO in any reasonable, objective selection mental heuristic the size of this factor is so tiny as to be easily discounted.
- Zot95 17y ago
  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 17y ago
    Also remarkable is that Qantas has had, I believe, no fatal accidents since 1951.
  - schammy 17y ago
    Well that's a jinx if I ever saw one. Nice going!
joubert 17y ago
It'd be more useful to know which is the safest seat in a car, SUV, bus.
- jarek 17y ago
  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.
nowsourcing 17y ago
Quantas never crashed.
- Zot95 17y ago
  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 17y ago
    There is no "u" in Qantas. Also: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Qantas_fatal_accidents http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Qantas_fatal_accidents
    - blogimus 17y ago
      And no fatal crashes since the last fatal crash in 1951, before they had any jet airliners.
  - nowsourcing 17y ago
    was just a Rain Man reference
westbywest 17y ago
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?
arch_hunter 17y ago
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 17y ago
  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.
mdh 17y ago
"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 17y ago
  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 17y ago
    It would heavily depend on the definition of "crash" used.
- paulgb 17y ago
  I agree, and this also implies that the infographic at the bottom is wrong (or mislabeled.)
Bjoern 17y ago
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-plane-crash/story-e6frfqfr-1111115935414 http://www.news.com.au/travel/travel-advice/how-to-survive-a...
- rbanffy 17y ago
  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.
fjabre 17y ago
There's been only one fatal jet crash in the U.S. in the last five-plus years That can't be right.
- InclinedPlane 17y ago
  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 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 17y ago
    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
metaguri 17y ago
I remember reading once that on military planes, everyone sits backwards because that is safer. I wonder if it is true?
- Ernestas 17y ago
  Your lungs less likely to collapse on impact. I've heard somewhere, not sure 100%.
mjfern 17y ago
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.

29 points by yigit 17y ago

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.

teye 17y ago
How many would there need to be to get your attention?
- henrikschroder 17y ago
  The probability of dying in an air crash is in the order of 10 million to one. Being killed by lightning is about 1 million to one, being killed in a car crash is about 20000 to one. So if you spend time thinking about which seat you're going to sit in when you fly to minimize your risk of dying, you are completely wasting your time.
  - pmiller2 17y ago
    All true, but I can't say taking a couple of minutes to read this article, then using the information in the future is "completely wasting" time.
    - potatolicious 17y ago
      But how would you use this information? There are other consideration besides safety when choosing a seat (e.g., proximity to a lavatory, first/business class amenities, legroom, etc). When you bring "chances of survival in a plane crash" into this equation without considering just how astronomically low your odds of an accident are, it's time wasted. IMHO in any reasonable, objective selection mental heuristic the size of this factor is so tiny as to be easily discounted.
Zot95 17y ago
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 17y ago
  Also remarkable is that Qantas has had, I believe, no fatal accidents since 1951.
- schammy 17y ago
  Well that's a jinx if I ever saw one. Nice going!

joubert 17y ago

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

jarek 17y ago
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.

nowsourcing 17y ago

Quantas never crashed.

Zot95 17y ago
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 17y ago
  There is no "u" in Qantas. Also: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Qantas_fatal_accidents http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Qantas_fatal_accidents
  - blogimus 17y ago
    And no fatal crashes since the last fatal crash in 1951, before they had any jet airliners.
- nowsourcing 17y ago
  was just a Rain Man reference

westbywest 17y ago

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?

arch_hunter 17y ago

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 17y ago
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.

mdh 17y ago

"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 17y ago
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 17y ago
  It would heavily depend on the definition of "crash" used.
paulgb 17y ago
I agree, and this also implies that the infographic at the bottom is wrong (or mislabeled.)

Bjoern 17y ago

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

rbanffy 17y ago
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.

fjabre 17y ago

There's been only one fatal jet crash in the U.S. in the last five-plus years That can't be right.

InclinedPlane 17y ago
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 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 17y ago
  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

metaguri 17y ago

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

Ernestas 17y ago
Your lungs less likely to collapse on impact. I've heard somewhere, not sure 100%.

mjfern 17y ago

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.