Ha, 20 accidents since 1971... It'd probably be more helpful to the general public for them to study which side of an ostrich it's safer to stand on.
Being killed by lightning is about 1 million to one, being killed in a car crash is about 20000 to one.
So if you spend time thinking about which seat you're going to sit in when you fly to minimize your risk of dying, you are completely wasting your time.
Is this saying that they only considered crashes where at least 1 person survived and at least 1 died? If so, doesn't this change the analysis from 'given you will be in a plane crash, how can you reduce your likelihood of dying?' to 'given that you will be in a plane crash and SOMEONE will survive, how can you increase the likelihood that it is you?'
I suspect the quotes at the beginning of the article are principally about the former question (and are probably correct in that context).
Or was that just a Rain Man reference?
That can't be right.
http://www.ntsb.gov/aviation/Paxfatal.htm
Also note carefully: in the US. You might be thinking about other recent fatal jet crashes that happened outside the US.
On the flipside, every crash except 1 in the last 10 years has been 100% fatal, whereas the previous 20 years there are quite a number of crashes with a lot of survivors.
I dunno, I just find that interesting. :P
[1] http://www.news.com.au/travel/travel-advice/how-to-survive-a...
Even if the back of the airplane tended to be empty, the article makes it quite clear that they looked at deaths per occupied seat, not deaths per seat overall.
I recall reading a study that said rear passenger seat (rear right hand side in a RHS driving country) is the safest by a fair margin in a four or five passenger vehicle. Not really surprising if you think about it.
I doubt there will be a high standard deviation for bus seats assuming you mean 40-50 passenger long-distance buses. Somewhat away from the front, close to an emergency exit, and away from any structural weaknesses (if known) is probably your best bet.
According to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, over 37,000 people died in traffic crashes in the United States in 2008, which makes car accidents the 10th leading cause of death. To put this in perspective, this number of deaths is equivalent to 265 fully loaded Boeing 737 crashing, or one every business day of every year.
And how about non-fatal injuries from auto accidents? Over 2.5 million drivers and passengers (the same number of people living in the four states of Wyoming, Vermont, North Dakota, and Alaska) were injured in 2008. This makes traffic crashes the third leading cause of non-fatal injuries.
Of the injuries caused by traffic crashes, over 10% (or over 250,000) are incapacitating, in which the injury prevents the injured person from walking, driving, or normally continuing the activities the person was capable of performing before the injury occurred.
In sum, in a 10 year window about 1% of the total US population is either killed or seriously injured in a car accident.
Sure, I can believe that seats toward the rear of an aircraft tend to fair better in crashes. It's actually rather obvious, hence the decision to place the data recorders in the tail.
However, what use is this research to the vast majority of travelers who have limited choice in where they may sit on a flight? Doesn't this sort of research suggest telling such travelers, "well it sucks to be you, doesn't it?" And what about the airlines' need to fill as many seats as possible meet their bottom lines?
