Where You Sit Could Save Your Life

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There are those that consider flying to be the safest form of travel and there are those who have there superstitions.

So, does it matter where you sit on the aircraft in the event that the aircraft were to crash?

Though it may seem a little morbid to think in terms of an aircraft even taking a nose-dive, there are those people who consider their options of surviving an incident of such magnitude.

Since 1971, there has been 20 US airline accidents documented by the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) with both fatalities and survivors.

Popular Mechanics investigated these crashes and took an in depth look into the past 36 years of airline seating charts.

They've concluded that the aft portion of the aircraft is the safest area to survive a crash.

The following chart provided the finding from their studies showing that it is 69 percent more likely that survival is greater in the back of the bus.

In 11 of the 20 crashes investigated PM found that rear passengers clearly fared better; passengers sitting nearer to the tail of the aircraft were 40 percent more likely to survive a crash than those in the first few rows up front.

Only five accidents favored those sitting forward.

Three were tossups, with no particular pattern of survival.

In one case, seat positions could not be determined.

But their findings came with great skepticism and expert opinion deemed the study indifferent on where you sit.

Boeing stated that "one seat is as safe as the other."

A Federal Aviation Administration spokesperson commented that "there's just no way to say."

And the website airsafe.com implied that "there is no safest seat."

As superstition will have it, however, it is really up to the individual flyer to decide what are the options.

For more on the article access the page through the link attached on Popular Mechanics.

Thanks For Flying