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Safest Seat on a Plane, Or How to Survive a Crash

Posted by CowboyNeal on Sat Jul 21, 2007 11:34 AM
from the law-of-averages dept.
Hardware Hacking Science
Ant writes "Popular Mechanics shares a short article on an exclusive look at 36 years' worth of National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) reports and seating charts to determine the best way to live through a disaster in the sky. Move to the back of the Airbus."
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story
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Safest Seat on a Plane, Or How to Survive a Crash 50 Comments More /

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  • It's safer in the back and... (Score:5, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward on Saturday July 21 2007, @11:39AM (#19938691)
    you're by the bathrooms and you can watch any hottie walk back to her seat.
  • it's that if your time has come there's nothing you can do.

    Which is good, cause it fits in nicely with a bit of wisdom that a lot of people should take to heart:

    don't worry about stuff you have no control over.

  • Sit in the rear (Score:5, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward on Saturday July 21 2007, @11:43AM (#19938723)
    Rarely does an airplane back into the side of a mountain.

  • What are the odds? (Score:5, Insightful)

    by slughead (592713) on Saturday July 21 2007, @11:45AM (#19938733) Homepage Journal
    The odds of dying in a plane crash are 1 in 5,051 in your whole lifetime. To give you some perspective, you're 5 times more likely to drown, 23 times more likely to fall to your death, and 60 times more likely to die in a car accident.

    Therefore, a far more useful article would be "How to survive driving off a seaside cliff into the ocean."

    • Re:What are the odds? (Score:5, Insightful)

      by nerdonamotorcycle (710980) on Saturday July 21 2007, @11:46AM (#19938737)
      Indeed. You're way more likely to die as a result of the cab ride to the airport.

    • Re:What are the odds? (Score:4, Funny)

      by kryten_nl (863119) on Saturday July 21 2007, @11:51AM (#19938785)

      Therefore, a far more useful article would be "How to survive driving off a seaside cliff into the ocean."

      Install wings on your car?

    • Re:What are the odds? (Score:5, Insightful)

      by dkleinsc (563838) on Saturday July 21 2007, @12:05PM (#19938881)
      I tend to view the issue with plane crashes (and terrorism, which is even more ridiculously unlikely) is the loss of control. With cars, if you're driving, you feel like you're in control of the vehicle, and by extension the situation, and thus feel safer. Even if you have a friend driving, you now have someone you (probably) trust in control of the situation.

      By contrast, in a plane, you're totally at the mercy of the pilots and air traffic controllers. You don't know them, and you know that if they screw up there's pretty close to nothing you can do about it. So even if the risk is actually less, it appears to be greater, because you are giving up control over whether you live or die.

    • Re: (Score:3, Interesting)

      by Tribbin (565963)
      Because that would be boring:

      - Don't drive while drunk
      - Don't drive while tired
      - Don't call while driving
      - Don't verbally fight while driving
      - Don't speed
      - Fasten seatbelts
      - No sex while driving

      Who want's to read that, heh?!

      • Re:What are the odds? (Score:5, Interesting)

        by Dunbal (464142) on Saturday July 21 2007, @12:11PM (#19938945)
        Aortic dissection. This is what kills you. It's the most common, lethal deceleration injury. Of course if you're going fast enough you're simply crushed, but at "lower" speeds a sudden deceleration is enough to rotate the heart (which is fairly mobile in the chest) and rip it off the aorta (which is fixed to the posterior chest wall). The arteriovenous ligament doesn't help, either. So the aorta ruptures and you die of a cardiac tamponade. Oh and this is how Princess Diana died.

        • Re:What are the odds? (Score:5, Interesting)

          by tomhudson (43916) <hudsonNO@SPAMvideotron.ca> on Saturday July 21 2007, @12:53PM (#19939291) Journal

          "Aortic dissection. This is what kills you. It's the most common, lethal deceleration injury. Of course if you're going fast enough you're simply crushed, but at "lower" speeds a sudden deceleration is enough to rotate the heart (which is fairly mobile in the chest) and rip it off the aorta (which is fixed to the posterior chest wall). The arteriovenous ligament doesn't help, either. So the aorta ruptures and you die of a cardiac tamponade. Oh and this is how Princess Diana died."

          They wanted to install seats facing backwards in airplanes specifically to reduce the deaths from the initial crash. Howver, they determined that the flying public wouldn't accept rear-facing seats. Considering all the BS the flying public puts up with nowadyas, maybe its time to float the idea again.

          Oh, another Princess Di joke - "I heard Princess Di was on the radio... And the dash. And the seat ..."

        • Re:What are the odds? (Score:4, Funny)

          by Poromenos1 (830658) on Saturday July 21 2007, @03:30PM (#19940545) Homepage
          That does it. I'm getting my heart nailed in place!

        • Re:What are the odds? (Score:5, Interesting)

          by nbauman (624611) on Saturday July 21 2007, @04:02PM (#19940769) Homepage Journal

          Aortic dissection. This is what kills you. It's the most common, lethal deceleration injury. Of course if you're going fast enough you're simply crushed, but at "lower" speeds a sudden deceleration is enough to rotate the heart (which is fairly mobile in the chest) and rip it off the aorta (which is fixed to the posterior chest wall). The arteriovenous ligament doesn't help, either. So the aorta ruptures and you die of a cardiac tamponade. Oh and this is how Princess Diana died.

          That's a good story. I wonder if it's true.

          By a strange coincidence (only on Slashdot), I just went to a conference on aortic surgery. And I used to edit the Stapp Car Crash Conference Proceedings in the 1970s (great series) and I remember at least one article on aortic damage.

          Bottom line: Most of the aortic damage in automobile collisions occurs to people who weren't wearing their seat belts. Those lap and shoulder belts (which the U.S. auto companies refused to install until 1967) really work well. You can thank Ralph Nader for saving about 25,000 lives a year. The auto companies also made steering columns that were positioned exactly right and strong enough to impale the driver's chest, often with a heart puncture. Thanks to Ralph Nader, they replaced them with a collapsable steering column around 1967.

          Let's see the latest stuff, um, http://content.nejm.org/cgi/content/full/332/6/356 [nejm.org] Smith MD et al, Transesophageal Echocardiography in the Diagnosis of Traumatic Rupture of the Aorta, N Engl J Med 1995 332:356-362. (Well worth reading; great X-rays.) 7 were not restrained, 2 were. Smith says:

          Blunt chest trauma commonly results from motor vehicle accidents in which the sternum of an unrestrained driver strikes the steering wheel at impact.5 Rupture of the aorta has been estimated to account for up to 18 percent of deaths in motor vehicle accidents.19 As a result of rapid deceleration of the thorax and compression of the diaphragm, the aorta is subjected to extreme torque and compression at points of attachment: the sinuses of Valsalva, the isthmus, and the diaphragm.20 With compression of the mediastinum, the heart may be displaced into the right or left side of the chest, producing further stress at these points. The severe aortic-wall stress from intraluminal hypertension results in rupture through the intima, often continuing into the media and adventitial layers. Complete rupture usually results in death at the scene, whereas patients with a contained hematoma may survive to reach the hospital.

          Whaddya know, the poster has a point. Aortic trauma is still a major cause of automobile fatalties, usually but not always when people aren't wearing seat belts (Diana wasn't).

          But wait, Smith also says,

          Thirteen patients (14.0 percent) ultimately died during hospitalization as a result of associated injuries, but no deaths were related to aortic injury (Table 1). The four deaths in the group with aortic injury were due to multiorgan-system failure (two patients), acute myocardial infarction (one patient), and hemorrhage from pelvic fracture (one patient).

          I forget how to do the equations, but as I recall when a car collides against a solid barrier at 50mph, it has about 50 inches of crush space in which to come to a halt, and that comes to about 50g, which everybody told me is survivable. (One of you young whippersnappers can check my numbers.) John Paul Stapp tested it himself on his rocket sled and lived. But if you subjected 100 people to 50g, I don't know how many of them would get aortic rupture.

          The other major cause of death (mostly to people who aren't wearing seat belts) is head injury. Thanks to Ralph Nader, those windshields are carefully designed with plastic laminate that has just the right elasticity to bring a passenger's head to a stop with low enough force to avoid breaking his

        • Re:What are the odds? (Score:4, Funny)

          by Alsee (515537) on Saturday July 21 2007, @05:15PM (#19941303) Homepage
          the aorta ruptures and you die of a cardiac tamponade

          Speaking as a guy, tamponade sounds like a really embarrassing way to die.

          -

      • Re:What are the odds? (Score:4, Insightful)

        by Deadstick (535032) on Saturday July 21 2007, @12:16PM (#19938991)
        Because if we flew airplanes like most people drive cars, we'd die like flies.

        rj

        • Re:What are the odds? (Score:5, Insightful)

          by dal20402 (895630) * <dal20402@m[ ]com ['ac.' in gap]> on Saturday July 21 2007, @12:48PM (#19939255) Journal

          There are no parachutes on airliners for the following reasons:

          1. Parachutes are heavy, so a plane equipped with them could carry less cargo or passengers and ticket prices would go up.

          2. Parachutes are very complex to pack, and would have to be unpacked, inspected, and repacked at regular maintenance intervals, at considerable expense (not to mention increased time out of service for the plane).

          3. If the plane is high enough that parachutes will be of any use, it's impossible to open most exit doors as pressure seals them against the inside of the fuselage.

          4. Only a tiny fraction of passengers would understand how to use parachutes. When all the others slam into the ground at terminal velocity -- especially if the plane somehow survives -- it's a brave new world of stupendously huge liability for the airline.

            • Re:What are the odds? (Score:5, Informative)

              by gerardrj (207690) on Saturday July 21 2007, @03:59PM (#19940753) Journal
              To the casual observer the doors do appear to close simply like a car door, but it's not the case. If you watch carefully when the doors move you will see the complex hinge system swings the door to the interior of the aircraft then pushes is outward against the body. When the aircraft is pressurized the door is sealed by the outward pressure. To start opening these doors you must first pull on them, to close them you end up pushing on them. For reasons I can only imagine I am unable to locate any on-line video or diagrams of how this works but in this image [flickr.com] you can just barely make out the instructions to pull the door open then push it out.

              Jumping from 37,000 feet and hundreds of MPH requires training and equipment. At that altitude the ambient air temperature is -70 fahrenheit. If the average terminal velocity of a person skydiving is 250 ft/s then you'll take about 2m30s to get to the ground without a 'chute. At 250 ft/s the wind chill is really, really significant. You've then got a choice to make (any perhaps the airline would instruct you about the best action): open the 'chute immediately after exiting the plane or wait until you are nearer the ground.
              Opening the parachute early means you are certain to hit the ground slowly but maximized your exposure to very low temperatures and low oxygen with all those inherent injuries.
              Opening the parachute later means more wind chill and possibly more tissue damage. Your betting that you'll be conscious to pull the rip cord. You also have much less time to perform an maneuvering to get to a "good" landing spot.

              That said, given the choice of almost certain death on a severely disabled airliner or possible death by parachute I'd probably choose the parachute.

            • Re:What are the odds? (Score:4, Insightful)

              by Fastolfe (1470) <david@fastolfe.net> on Saturday July 21 2007, @09:44PM (#19942821) Homepage
              While I agree that those four issues are relatively weak (but still important when costing solutions for the problem), the biggest problem with parachutes is that exceedingly few air accidents occur in a manner that allows parachutes to be useful. If you suffer a catastrophic failure mid-flight, it's unlikely that you're going to have time to get parachutes on everyone and get them all out the door, even assuming the plane is continuing to fly straight and level (imagine trying to accomplish this while you're spiraling toward the ground). If you do have time to do all of that, then the plane really isn't in that bad of shape and it's more likely that the landing will be safer, even if it's unpowered with some critical systems failed, than throwing everyone out the door to fend for themselves.

              For accidents that occur during landing or just after take-off, even ignoring the time factor, your altitude is far too low to safely bail out.

              There could be some scenarios where parachutes would save lives, and the crew would be in a position to know that parachutes would be safer than trying to land, but I rather suspect these scenarios are going to be rare.

              At some point you have to ask yourself if the odds of this solution saving lives justify the enormous costs of implementing it.

  • Reminds me of... (Score:5, Funny)

    by rundstykke (645735) on Saturday July 21 2007, @11:48AM (#19938759)
    ..an entertaining read I bumped into a couple of months back, describing how to survive a freefall from 35'000 feet...

    http://www.greenharbor.com/fffolder/carkeet.html [greenharbor.com]


    /Rundstykke

  • Worry about something else (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Kohath (38547) on Saturday July 21 2007, @11:48AM (#19938763)
    If you're really worried about a plane crash, I suggest staying home. Maybe don't get out of bed at all.

    Watching and reading the news is your real problem. Things that happen on the news are extremely unlikely to happen to you. That's why you never see headlines like "Jill Larson Goes to the Market. Buys Coffee. (Subtitle: Coffee purchase exceeds analysts' expectations by 100%)"

    That's all. I have to go to the market. But I'm not buying coffee, so no commercial airliners will crash today.

  • BBC already did this... (Score:5, Informative)

    by Joce640k (829181) on Saturday July 21 2007, @11:50AM (#19938769) Homepage
    The BBC did a documentary on this...and...

    The best place is "near an exit door".

    Statistically, most crashes are survivable if you can get out. The biggest impediment to getting out is the number of other people between you and the door. The ones who don't get out die of smoke/fire.

  • Front or back seat of a car (Score:3, Funny)

    by antifoidulus (807088) on Saturday July 21 2007, @11:50AM (#19938779) Homepage Journal
    provided you aren't driving. That is much more important question. Or even better yet, why in the hell are SUVs legal? An ever better question that can save many more lives!

  • Not on Oceanic 815... (Score:5, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward on Saturday July 21 2007, @11:54AM (#19938805)
    ... where all but one of the survivors from the tail section so far as been kidnapped or murdered.

  • Excuse me... (Score:5, Informative)

    by AsmCoder8088 (745645) on Saturday July 21 2007, @12:00PM (#19938843)

    The raw data from these 20 accidents has been languishing for decades in National Transportation Safety Board files, waiting to be analyzed by anyone curious enough to look and willing to do the statistical drudgework.

    So, they are working off of a sample size of twenty??? Not sure if I would draw too many conclusions from this dataset.

    • Re:Excuse me... (Score:5, Insightful)

      by fermion (181285) on Saturday July 21 2007, @03:52PM (#19940697) Homepage Journal
      Yeah, and this is likely the least of their troubles. The data was basically 50/50, and they did not show that 5% difference was significant.

      Given thier analysis, and what often happens in a plane crash, this is what I think might be a more reasonable conclusion.

      In the event of a passenger jet crash, probability is that everyone will die. If everyone does not die, the statistics still favor a majority of the passengers being killed in the crash.

      The analysis in the paper appears to show a slightly higher probability of survival in the back of the plane, but did not show that the level was statistically significant. In the other cases the was not a clear effect of seat position, and often the back of the plane appeared to be preferentially fatal.

      So, in summary, the passenger jet is not likely to crash. In the few cases where a crash does occur, and fatalities ensue, then there are not, on average, going to be many survivors. In the extremely rare case that jet crashes and there are survivors, a passenger may be safer up back, unless it is one of those cases where you are safe in front. Therefore, the best thing to do is sit somewhere in the middle.

  • The MythBusters say it is the (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Joe The Dragon (967727) on Saturday July 21 2007, @12:09PM (#19938921)
    The MythBusters say it is the rear facing flight attendant seat in the back of the plane.
    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MythBusters_(season_2 )#Escape [wikipedia.org] Slide Parachute

  • Is it expensive (Score:4, Funny)

    by WormholeFiend (674934) on Saturday July 21 2007, @12:09PM (#19938923)
    to get a seat inside the black box?

  • Best way to survice a crash... (Score:5, Funny)

    by niceone (992278) * on Saturday July 21 2007, @12:15PM (#19938977) Journal
    ...just reboot and you should be fine.

  • excellent (Score:4, Funny)

    by JustNiz (692889) on Saturday July 21 2007, @12:16PM (#19938983)
    All those arrogant dicks in first class get to die first.

  • Don't sit in the back! (Score:5, Funny)

    by Per Wigren (5315) on Saturday July 21 2007, @12:47PM (#19939249) Homepage
    That's where the snakes are!

  • First Class (Score:4, Funny)

    by 15Bit (940730) on Saturday July 21 2007, @12:52PM (#19939285)
    As a regular flier in cattle-class, i'd just like to say that its nice to see first class passengers getting the preferential treatment they deserve. First on, first off and first into the mountainside...

  • I want to die like my grandfather... (Score:5, Funny)

    by microcars (708223) on Saturday July 21 2007, @12:55PM (#19939307) Homepage
    peacefully in his sleep

    not like the passengers in his car, screaming and yelling

  • Sitting in back is counterproductive (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Waffle Iron (339739) on Saturday July 21 2007, @01:03PM (#19939367)
    According to this site [airlinesafety.com], if you fly every day, you'd get killed once every 19,000 years. That's about a 1 in 7 million odds per flight, which sounds about right.

    When you sit in the back, it takes longer to get off of the plane because you have to wait for all the bozos in front of you to fumble for their personal belongings. I'd say that a conservative estimate is an average of 5 extra minutes. So before your first expected crash, you'd waste 5 * 7,000,000 minutes, or 66 solid years waiting at the back of planes. So to save each life, you're essentially using up an entire lifetime standing hunched over watching old codgers wrestle with their suitcases. (It's actually much worse than that, because only a fraction of fatal crashes even have a difference in outcome between the front and the back. A lot of times, everybody dies and sitting in the back doesn't help anyway.)

          • Re: (Score:3, Interesting)

            by nelsonal (549144)
            I've had pretty good experiences in the trains in the i-95 corridor. I think it's funny that the trains are much faster than planes with the congestion at airports. Nothing beats a Western US bus trip, it's not just a ride, it's an adventure. A modern bard could build a lifetime of tales from two regional bus trips.

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