(CNN) — When booking a flight, do you ever think about which seat will protect you the most in an emergency? Probably not.
Most people book seats for comfort, such as leg room, or convenience, such as easy access to toilets. Frequent fliers (this author included) might book their seat as close as possible to the front so they can disembark more quickly.
We rarely book a flight with hopes of getting one of the middle seats in the last row. Well, guess what? These seats are statistically the safest ones on an airplane.
Air travel is safe
Our interest in plane crashes might lie in wanting to understand why they happen, or what the odds are of them happening again. And perhaps it’s not a bad thing; our concern ensures these tragic incidents are thoroughly investigated, which helps keep air travel safe.
Frankly speaking, there is no real need to worry about safety when you board a commercial flight. But if you’ve still got that nagging question in your head, driven by sheer curiosity, read on.
Travel journalist and TV host Oneika Raymond surprises Richard Quest with her best tip for grabbing her favorite seat on a plane.
In the middle, at the back
It’s worth remembering accidents by their very nature do not conform to standards. In the 1989 United Flight 232 crash in Sioux City, Iowa, 184 of the 269 people on board survived the accident. Most of the survivors were sitting behind first class, towards the front of the plane.
This logically makes sense too. Sitting next to an exit row will always provide you with the fastest exit in the case of an emergency, granted there’s no fire on that side. But the wings of a plane store fuel, so this disqualifies the middle exit rows as the safest row option.
At the same time, being closer to the front means you’ll be impacted before those in the back, which leaves us with the last exit row. As for why the middle seats are safer than the window or aisle seats, that is, as you might expect, because of the buffer provided by having people on either side.
The wings of commercial planes store fuel, which can make this area slightly more hazardous in the very unlikely event of an emergency.
tonefotografia/Adobe Stock
Some emergencies are worse than others
The type of emergency will also dictate survivability. Running into a mountain will decrease chances of survival exponentially, as was the case in a tragic 1979 disaster in New Zealand. Air New Zealand Flight TE901 crashed into the slopes of Mt Erebus in Antarctica, killing 257 passengers and crew.
Pilots are trained to minimize potential risk in an emergency event as best as they can. They will try to avoid hitting mountains and look for a level place, such as an open field, to land as normally as possible. The technique for landing in water requires assessing the surface conditions and attempting to land between waves at a normal landing angle.
Manufacturers are designing new planes with more composite materials capable of handing in-flight stress. 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?
Granted, there are certain variables, such as impact from airspeed, that can vary slightly between different airplane types. However, the physics of flight is more or less the same in all planes.
Generally, larger planes will have more structural material and therefore more strength to withstand pressurization at altitude. This means they may provide some additional protection in an emergency — but this, again, is highly dependent on the severity of the emergency.
That’s not to say you should book your next flight on the largest plane you can find. As I’ve mentioned, air travel remains very safe. So I’d suggest thinking about what movie you’ll watch instead, and hoping they don’t run out of chicken and only have the shrimp left!
Top image: An airplane cabin interior. (Dmitriy/Adobe Stock)
Doug Drury is Professor, Head of Aviation, at Central Queensland University.
Source: www.cnn.com