The safest seat on an aircraft

No doubt air travel is the safest means of travel in the earth, however, we are still curious about finding the safest place in a plane in case of an unlikely accident. Various studies related to flight crashes suggests that chances of being killed or injured are reduced by sitting in economy class, with a seatbelt on, nearby the window and sitting within few rows of an emergency exit. Historically, middle seats at the rear of an aircraft have the highest survival rate. 

Aircraft safe seat Image: Popular Mechanics

In one experiment conducted by Channel 4 for a documentary, The crash, the research team arranged Boeing 727 fitted with cameras, crash test dummies and sensors to be crashed in one of the Desert in Mexico. All the front seat passengers usually the named as first class, business class, and premium economy classes died. This front part of an aircraft experienced a massive force of 12G, however, the force gradually decreased in further back sections to as minimum as 6G. This suggests that the chance of survival increases to passengers who are sitting to the rear of the aircraft.

This finding is also supported by another study conducted by Popular Mechanics in 2007. To get the result, all flight crashes since 1971 were analyzed and the team found that those who seated in rear seats (behind the wing's trailing edge) were the safest having 69 percent of survival rates compared to 56 percent over the wing and 49 percent at front of the plane.

Furthermore,  after checking the accounts of 2000 survivors in 105 accidents around the world, University of Greenwich study found that those who sat more than six rows from an emergency exit were less likely to survive.

Thus, seats in the rare section of an aircraft with a seatbelt on, nearby the window and sitting within few rows of an emergency exit is probably the safest seat on a plane.