Where you sit on an airplane can make or break your experience on board. When booking a flight, most people choose seats for comfort, like leg room, or for convenience, like being near the restroom. Some frequent fliers may also want seats close to the front so they can get off the plane faster. But one thing people really don’t consider? Which seat will keep them safest during an emergency.
Very few people book a flight hoping to get one of the middle seats in the last row, but they might if they knew these seats are statistically the safest ones on the plane. Keep in mind that air travel is the safest mode of transport, and research shows that the odds of dying in a plane are about one in 205-thousand 552, compared to one in 102 for riding in cars. But if safety is on your mind, it’s good to know where the best place to sit is.
“Time” magazine analyzed 35 years of aircraft accident data and found that the middle rear seats on a plane had the lowest fatality rate, 28% compared to 44% for the middle aisle seats. While exit row seats will get you off fastest in an emergency, the wings also store fuel, so that excludes middle exit row seats as the safest option. And the reason the middle seats are safer than window or aisle seats? Having people on both sides provides a buffer.
Source: The Conversation