Those sitting within the rear seats of an airplane may need a greater probability of surviving a plane crash, based on experts.
Nonetheless, no single “magic safest seat” actually exists, an engineering skilled asserted.
When assessing the probability of surviving a plane crash, investigators take a look at five things: aircraft integrity, safety restraint effectiveness, gravitational forces(or G-forces) experienced by passengers and crew, the environment contained in the aircraft, and post-crash aspects, similar to fire or smoke, reported the Wall Street Journal.
A crash is taken into account “survivable” by the National Transportation Safety Board if the forces transmitted to passengers don’t exceed the boundaries of human tolerance and if the structure of the aircraft stays largely intact. A crash is nonsurvivable when G-forces are so great that the body can’t withstand it.
When Jeju Air Flight 2216 crash-landed at Muan International Airport in South Korea in December, the plane burst into a large fireball, killing all but two of the 181 passengers.
The survivors were two flight attendants, a 33-year-old man and a 25-year-old woman — who were sitting within the very back of the plane, which was the one recognizable a part of the aircraft left intact.
A number of days before the Jeju Air Flight crash, an Azerbaijan Airlines flight crashed in Kazakhstan Wednesday, killing a minimum of 38 of the 67 people on board.
All survivors were seated within the rear of the plane.
Nonetheless, many aspects come into play.
“There are numerous reasons someone may survive in what appears to be a completely unsurvivable situation,” Barbara Dunn, president of the International Society of Air Safety Investigators, told the Journal.
“Depending on how the aircraft lands and where a passenger is seated has an impact. If you could have your seat belt tightened, it limits the quantity of flailing the body goes through. It also is determined by whether a passenger is in a position to assume a brace position.”
If a plane crashes nose-first, passengers up front will get essentially the most impact — but sitting at the back of the plane isn’t the one factor that determines whether one will survive a plane crash.
“A number of people think it’s safer within the back than within the front,” Dunn said. “Not necessarily. How quick the fireplace takes over and the way quick you’ll be able to get to an exit, all those things matter as well.”
“Whenever you hear survivable, you’d think people survived, and whenever you hear non-survivable, you’d think everybody dies,” Anthony T. Brickhouse, an authority in aerospace safety and a professor at Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University, told WSJ.
“We’ve had people survive what we might call nonsurvivable crashes, and we’ve also had people die in what we might call survivable crashes.”
In response to data collected by the Flight Safety Foundation, a global nonprofit that gives safety guidance, there have been only 17 other crashes prior to now eight a long time where a plane carrying 80 or more passengers had one or two survivors.
In January 2024, Japan Airlines evacuated tons of of passengers before the frame of the aircraft collapsed in flames after a collision with one other jet upon landing.
TRT World reported that 2024 saw a grim increase in fatal aircraft accidents for the worldwide aviation industry — in comparison with 2023 which was considered the “safest 12 months ever in aviation” with zero recorded fatalities in major passenger plane crashes.
The excellent news is that “the overwhelming majority of aircraft accidents are survivable, and the vast majority of people in accidents survive,” Ed Galea, professor of fireplace safety engineering who has conducted landmark studies on plane crash evacuations, recently told CNN.
But “there isn’t a magic safest seat,” he added.
“It is determined by the character of the accident you’re in. Sometimes it’s higher on the front, sometimes on the back.”
Those sitting within the rear seats of an airplane may need a greater probability of surviving a plane crash, based on experts.
Nonetheless, no single “magic safest seat” actually exists, an engineering skilled asserted.
When assessing the probability of surviving a plane crash, investigators take a look at five things: aircraft integrity, safety restraint effectiveness, gravitational forces(or G-forces) experienced by passengers and crew, the environment contained in the aircraft, and post-crash aspects, similar to fire or smoke, reported the Wall Street Journal.
A crash is taken into account “survivable” by the National Transportation Safety Board if the forces transmitted to passengers don’t exceed the boundaries of human tolerance and if the structure of the aircraft stays largely intact. A crash is nonsurvivable when G-forces are so great that the body can’t withstand it.
When Jeju Air Flight 2216 crash-landed at Muan International Airport in South Korea in December, the plane burst into a large fireball, killing all but two of the 181 passengers.
The survivors were two flight attendants, a 33-year-old man and a 25-year-old woman — who were sitting within the very back of the plane, which was the one recognizable a part of the aircraft left intact.
A number of days before the Jeju Air Flight crash, an Azerbaijan Airlines flight crashed in Kazakhstan Wednesday, killing a minimum of 38 of the 67 people on board.
All survivors were seated within the rear of the plane.
Nonetheless, many aspects come into play.
“There are numerous reasons someone may survive in what appears to be a completely unsurvivable situation,” Barbara Dunn, president of the International Society of Air Safety Investigators, told the Journal.
“Depending on how the aircraft lands and where a passenger is seated has an impact. If you could have your seat belt tightened, it limits the quantity of flailing the body goes through. It also is determined by whether a passenger is in a position to assume a brace position.”
If a plane crashes nose-first, passengers up front will get essentially the most impact — but sitting at the back of the plane isn’t the one factor that determines whether one will survive a plane crash.
“A number of people think it’s safer within the back than within the front,” Dunn said. “Not necessarily. How quick the fireplace takes over and the way quick you’ll be able to get to an exit, all those things matter as well.”
“Whenever you hear survivable, you’d think people survived, and whenever you hear non-survivable, you’d think everybody dies,” Anthony T. Brickhouse, an authority in aerospace safety and a professor at Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University, told WSJ.
“We’ve had people survive what we might call nonsurvivable crashes, and we’ve also had people die in what we might call survivable crashes.”
In response to data collected by the Flight Safety Foundation, a global nonprofit that gives safety guidance, there have been only 17 other crashes prior to now eight a long time where a plane carrying 80 or more passengers had one or two survivors.
In January 2024, Japan Airlines evacuated tons of of passengers before the frame of the aircraft collapsed in flames after a collision with one other jet upon landing.
TRT World reported that 2024 saw a grim increase in fatal aircraft accidents for the worldwide aviation industry — in comparison with 2023 which was considered the “safest 12 months ever in aviation” with zero recorded fatalities in major passenger plane crashes.
The excellent news is that “the overwhelming majority of aircraft accidents are survivable, and the vast majority of people in accidents survive,” Ed Galea, professor of fireplace safety engineering who has conducted landmark studies on plane crash evacuations, recently told CNN.
But “there isn’t a magic safest seat,” he added.
“It is determined by the character of the accident you’re in. Sometimes it’s higher on the front, sometimes on the back.”
