It’s time to choose your seat.
Shutterstock
Par Doug Drury, CQUniversity Australia
When you book a flight, do you wonder which seat will protect you the most in an emergency? Probably not.
Most people reserve seats for comfort, such as legroom, convenience, or easy access to the toilet. Frequent flyers (including myself) sometimes reserve their seat as close as possible to the front of the plane to be able to disembark more quickly.
We rarely book a flight expecting to get one of the middle seats in the last row. Well, guess what? These seats are statistically the safest on an airplane.
Air travel is safe
Before getting to the heart of the matter, I would like to remind you that air transport is the safest mode of transport. In 2022, there were just under 70 million flights worldwide, with just 174 fatalities.
According to analysis of census data by the US National Security Council, the odds of dying on an airplane are approximately 1 in 205,552, compared to 1 in 102 in a car. Despite this, we pay little attention to road fatalities, but when we hear regarding a plane crashing, it makes the headlines.
Our interest in plane crashes may lie in our desire to understand why they happen, or what the chances are of them happening once more. And that may not be a bad thing: our interest helps ensure that these tragic incidents are thoroughly investigated, which contributes to the safety of air travel.
There’s really no need to worry regarding safety when boarding a commercial flight. But if you still have that nagging question in your mind, driven by pure curiosity, read on.
In the middle, in the back
It is worth remembering that accidents, by their very nature, are not up to standard. When United Flight 232 crashed in Sioux City, Iowa in 1989, 184 of the 269 people on board survived the crash. Most of the survivors were seated behind first class, towards the front of the aircraft.
Nevertheless, a survey by the American magazine Time which examined 35 years of plane crash data found that the center rear seats of an airplane had the lowest fatality rate: 28%, compared to 44% for the center aisle seats.
It is also logical. Sitting next to a row where the exit is will always give you the quickest exit in an emergency, provided there is no fire on that side. But an airplane’s wings store fuel, which disqualifies center exit rows as the safest row option.
At the same time, being closer to the front means you’ll be hit before those in the back, leaving us with the last row that counts one exit. As for why middle seats are safer than window or aisle seats, it’s, as you might expect, because of the buffer of having people around. each side.
Shutterstock
Some crashes are worse than others
The type of accident will also determine survivability. Colliding with a mountain will decrease the chance of survival exponentially, as it did in a tragic 1979 disaster in New Zealand. Air New Zealand flight TE901 crashed into the slopes of Mount Erebus in Antarctica, killing 257 passengers and crew.
Landing in the ocean nose forward also decreases chances of survival, as Air France Flight 447 showed in 2009, in which 228 passengers and crew perished.
Pilots are trained to minimize potential risks in the event of an emergency. They will try to avoid hitting mountains and look for a flat place, like an open field, to land as normally as possible. Water landing technique involves assessing surface conditions and attempting to land between waves at a normal landing angle.
Airplanes are designed to be very robust in emergency situations. In fact, the main reason cabin crew reminds us to keep our seat belts fastened is not the risk of being crushed, but the “clear air turbulence” that can be encountered anytime at high altitudes. It is this meteorological phenomenon that can cause the most damage to passengers and aircraft.
Manufacturers are designing new planes with more composite materials that can withstand in-flight stresses. In these designs, the wings are not rigid and can flex to absorb extreme loading to prevent structural failure.
Does the type of plane make a difference?
It is true that some variables, such as the impact of speed, may vary slightly from one type of aircraft to another. However, the physics of flight is more or less the same for all aircraft.
In general, larger aircraft have more structural materials and therefore more strength to withstand pressurization at altitude. This means that they can provide additional protection in an emergency, but once more this depends on the severity of the emergency.
That doesn’t mean you have to book your next flight on the biggest plane you can find. As I mentioned, air travel remains very safe.
Doug Drury, Professor/Head of Aviation, CQUniversity Australia
This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.