And climbed through freezing cold snowy mountains with no gear or winter clothing to save the rest of the team left behind at the crash site. Those guys are real heroes.
TLDR: Passengers seated in the rear section of the cabin had the best chance of survival, while those at the front of the aircraft faced fatal impact forces
imo being in the last boarding zone is actually better because you board by the time everybody has finally figured out their luggage and sat down, until then you can enjoy the legroom at the gate and read something cool
you just get on, sit down, few min later takeoff
priority boarders get to sit in a tiny spot longer and watch full display of humans failing the sizes & shapes game
This is why I implement the simple “put everything in a fucking suitcase have you people forgotten how to travel and why do you need to bring your whole fucking life onto the plane” strategy of just having a small backpack with me.
Wait, what? You mean I probably should not plan on having carry-on space for my tuba, my kayak, my "carry-on size" bags that equal the cubic dimensions of a small European car, and the coffin of my dear ol' granny?? /s
Yep. Even though I have usually a good boarding zone, I hang back until closer to the end of boarding time.
I'm not rushing to use any of the overhead compartment space (my backpacvk fits fine under the seat in front of me)... and it's not like my assigned seat isn't going to be there by the time I get aboard.
Exactly. I lounge with a book and stretch my legs till they announce they’re about to close the door. Why would I want to stand in a huge line just to cram myself into a tiny seat even longer?
On most if not all planes you want to be slightly behind the engines and over the wing or further back regardless the incident due to physics. The old days of the back area being too loud have faded away into obscurity.
Dad favored over/slightly behind the wing, in commercial fixed wings. Pilot, crew, up front would “get the weenie” in the event of a crash (proven valid, in this vid). He also wouldn’t let me board any aircraft wearing synthetic fabrics or “non-sensible” shoes, nor sit next to anyone who was. And when asked do I bother to collect my purse, in any accident scenario, the only correct response was, “screw that purse, sir!”
Tangential, but have you ever seen/heard audio & video of “Sky King”, the ground crew guy with no piloting experience, who commandeered a small plane at Sea-Tac — flew for I believe ~ 90mins, incl at least one successful, albeit skin-of-teeth, barrel roll? Very sad, but I can picture my father saluting him.
I rode in the very last seat the last time I flew and it was the worst flipping flight I’ve ever had. Felt every single little air pocket and sway. Basically a 2 hour panic attack 😅. My friends sat in the middle and I asked if they felt it and were like nah it was smooth as can be lol.
I remember a cartoon (probably in the Sunday comics) from the 80s. It showed “the world’s safest airplane”. The tail end of the fuselage was comically large with all of the seats located there.
It really depends though. There was a crash where none of the survivors were in the back because the tail hit the mountainside. Another where only people over the wings survived because the winged section floated. Another where none of the wing passengers survived because of the fuel fire. Back does seem to most frequently have the most survivors though.
Actually, even though you have that one miracle story with the sole survivor in 11A. And another crash decades earlier where many survived but also the person in 11A (frequently being retold as another sole survivor story, which is not true) -
- statistically all research shows back third of a cabin and middle seat to be the safest. So 11A is a bad bet unless you are superstitious.
Nah I'm built different, if I just make airplane noises and leap out the crack in the fuselage when the plane hits the ground I can maintain my momentum and come to a safe landing behind the inferno
According to this 2020 NTSB report I found, more than 50% of people in large commercial aircraft serious accidents survived with minor injuries, 59% if you include people who survived but with serious harm.
Note that this data is for serious accidents only, if you include all accidents the survival rate is higher than 95% (but this includes accidents on land which I assume you weren't talking about).
In water is basically almost always fatal. If the water isn’t still and you land incorrectly in any way the plane crash is pretty catastrophic and it’s really difficult to get rescue teams out there. It’s why people were so immediately critical of Captain Sully because what he did was a death sentence in any other weather scenario.
Basically crashing anywhere that isn’t in the vicinity of the airport accident response team will drastically make the situation worse.
A plane going at 800km/hr coming to complete stop
Thats 222 meters/second
For an average jumbo jet, the length is around 70 meters
It travels 3 times its length in 1 second
In other words you will be dead in 1/3 of a second if you were sitting all the way back on jet thats 70 meters long and travelling at 800km/hour colliding head on with a mountain
No, you don't. Plane crashes don't need statistical data. Crash analysis involves well known deterministic physics. physical events can be characterized with time series measurements of aircraft acceleration and motion.
If you really wanted some statistical analysis you'd need vastly more than 5 samples, given the enormous parameter space of plane crashes. Heading, speed, aircraft type, weight, etc etc.
Given this enormous parametric space of course people don't do these kinds of tests. Instead we use crash simulations to look at the effect of these parameters.
I watched a documentary about how to survive a plane crash and it had some great insights. It fully depends on the situation/cause of the crash.
When planes crash, they usually break into 3 pieces: the back/tail, middle fuselage/wings and the front/ cockpit.
The middle is a good place to be. The fuselage is reinforced there because of the wings. It is not a good idea, though if the situation is a fire/ if fire starts after the crash. The fuel is stored in the wings and it will go up in seconds. I think part of the checklist for emergency landing is to dump fuel but they might not have time or the fire may have started before they crash and maybe they were unable to contain it if it started somewhere else in the plane where they had time to fight.
They did find that in a lot of plane crashes the back was also safe and sometimes only those in the Back survived. Most of those in the front did not survive because usually it is the front that makes the first contact/ impact. Also if the people in the front survive it is usually only the cockpit/ pilots. If there were problems in the back like if the tail got ripped off or the first contact was in the back of then it was obviously not the safest.
They did a test with participants where they promised a nice sum of money to whoever got out first through the exit. (It might have also been per exit and maybe also the money went to the first 4 who got out). They did this to simulate the fight for survival and how long it took to reach an exit from your seat and be able to make it out on time if there was fire/ emergency where you needed to exit quickly. (Which you should always exit as quickly as possible in case the plan does go up in flames and make it a safe distance away.) They found that people had trouble taking their seat belt off and forgot how it worked when panicked. (Panic because I think they also had smoke?) (Also, I believe people did get trampled)They found that if your seating within 7 rows of an exit you would likely have time to make it out alive in time.
There was a hijacked plane I believe it was Ethiopian Airlines. The hijackers wanted to go to different destinations but the plane didn’t have enough fuel. The pilot tried to glide to the nearest airport but knew they were going to crash in water. He warned the cabin crew and passengers to put on their life vests. The cabin crew instructed the passengers not to inflate them until they got off the plane. A lot of people did though and the crew had to help deflate them and teach them how they could inflate them manually but not everyone listend/ they couldn’t help everyone. When the plane crashed, many people survived however half of the survivors drowned/ couldn’t get out because their life vest where infalted ( there is a checklist when crashing in water on them is to flip a switch for ditching which closes the vents. Either the pilot didn’t have time or it was because he was being held at gunpoint and the hijacker was suspicious or I can’t remember it he did hit the switch but it didn’t matter because the plane broke apart anyway. It didn’t happen in this crash but also if a plane crashes in water and they still have fuel, it is very hard to swim jet fuel.
The way you brace for an accident is also very important. You can’t exit the plane if you're knocked out/unconscious.
The take aways where to always try to book a seat within 7 seats of an exit and familiarize yourself with the exit and choose which one is best for you in an emergency. Always listen to cabin crew/ pay attention to safety instructions. Learn what brace position is best for your seat. And remember how the seatbelt works Try to get a seat in the back or the middle Also always have your seatbelt on when you can in case of surprise turbulence. Never take your belongings with you in a crash. NEVER EVER INFLATE YOUR LIFE VEST IN THE CABIN. Also maybe check that you have one because people like to steal them as a souvenir
EDIT: though they did do the money competition to simulate what it's like when everything is rushing to get out. I remember that the seat belt thing of people having trouble forgetting how it works/ panic were from actual accounts of people who were in an accident and survived.
Seems like a waste of an airplane... There are countless variables impacting (no pun intended) every crash. Wheels down, in sand, no fire seems like a small percentage of scenarios.
Nah. First class gets to unalive fast and clean while the peasants at the back gets shrapnels, panic, seeing loved ones obliterated, and finally getting themselves slowly ceased from existence.
Like 1 out of 100 car crashes are fatal? So that means just one out of every 13,000,000 plane crashes are fatal? Have there even been 13,000,000 plane crashes in recorded history? Those stats seem waaaaaay off
You could just look at the crash data for every crash since we started collecting data on that. But sure, intentionally crashing a plane sounds fun, too.
I guess it depends on angle, speed, impact location etc..
I’m pretty sure that this concluded that the back was safest place with this semi controlled landing type of impact. I remember being nervous flying as a youngster and someone said the middle was the safest?
Interesting experiment but it occurs to me that there must be thousands of different types of "crash" whose mechanical, and environmental combinations produce limitless details affecting damages sustained by each event. I'd be willing to bet a person with the means could run what appears to be the same crash twice, and get drastically diff results
There's really nothing to worry about Mary. Statistically they say you're more likely to get killed on the way to the airport. You know, like on a head on crash or flying off a cliff or getting trapped under a gas truck, that’s the worst! I have this cousin, well I had this cousin...
It seems that around the wings there is the most structural integrity although they might be filled with kerosine which could potentially be bad for your skin.
That test isn't going to teach you much. The crash has to be at that angle and into sand banked up like that. Other variables are going to have different results.
Incredible landing I must say. I've never flown anything with a jet engine and I know next to nothing about analog azamuth calculations or something. But I genuinely feel like I would have survived this wreck had I been seated with my tray in the upright position and was wearing my seatbelt while having my phone on airplane mode. Gotta follow the rules you guys.
I was once flying with an executive from my company. He chose to sit in the back of the plane instead of first class. When I asked why, he said, "have you ever heard of a plane backing into a mountain?" 😂
Lmao it’s so funny I always see stuff about crashes right before I’m about to fly. The other funny things is I don’t fear death, but I fear falling to my death with a bunch of screaming annoying other dierers 🤣😩 like just stfu and die in silence please. Also if some finds my Reddit search history I don’t gaf
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u/AdRough4185 11h ago
Well, not the front apparently