Backwards Seats Are Safer on Planes, but Too Bad
Jennifer Billock April 24, 2018
It may be safer to have a backward-facing seat on a plane, but thanks to costs and customer perceptions, that level of security is out the window, as airlines have no intentions of adding them to flights or changing the current configurations.
Just like with carseats for children, research shows that passengers on planes would be safer if their seats were facing backward. Not for the flight itself, though, but in case of a crash.
“Lots of research has been done into it and the [Royal Air Force] has rear-facing seats on its transport aircraft because it is proven to be safer,” David Learmount, the operations and safety editor at FlightGlobal.com, told The Telegraph.
But it will never happen, thanks to both costs and consumer perception. Changing airline seat configurations to be backward facing would just cost way too much.
“The costs would be prohibitive to airlines,” Learmount told The Telegraph. “During an impact, the passenger’s center of gravity would be higher and the seat would be taking more of the strain – therefore the seat itself, the fittings and the floor of the aircraft would need to be strengthened. That would increase the weight of the aircraft, which would increase fuel consumption.”
Learmount also thinks passengers wouldn’t want to sit in them, whether it’s because forward-facing seats have been the norm since the inception of air travel, or because some are concerned about motion sickness.
“People wouldn’t want them,” he told The Telegraph. “British European Airways used to fly Trident jets with both forward- and rear-facing seats – and people would kill for a seat facing the front. On trains it’s always the forward-facing seats that are worn out.”
[Photo: Shutterstock]
Think Mr Learmont might need to update himself on current RAF passenger aircraft. Rear facing is technically safer, and I usually go for rear facing seats on trains where accidents could well be survivable. It may help in aircraft ground accidents but probably not going to make much difference in a 500kt crash! Excellent comment Frogdoctor!
The main issue is not CG, but the dynamic load requirements. Seats are required to withstand a 16G forward load, but only a 1.5G aft load so turning the seat around would require a complete structural redesign. Ref: 14CFR25.561 and 14CRF25.562 Also, designing a seat to withstand either orientation is not feasible. The additional structural weight of the seat would not be acceptable to the airlines.
As has been pointed out, many airlines have rearward facing seats in J But don't let Alex Cruz know he could get an extra six economy rows into an A320 by alternating forward and rearward and letting passengers fight over leg room...
The PAX center of gravity would be higher because the "brace position" when flying backwards would be upright against the seatback instead of bent over at the waist with a forward facing seat.
I think they mean higher CofG because the force would be spread out over the entire seat back (transferring to the seat back hinge with leverage). As opposed to today's force placed squarely on the seat belt and harness points that are connected to the floor in basically a straight line pull force against the rear strut mounts of the seats into to the floor track. With rear-facing seats (assuming no redesign) you'd be reasonably likely to be crushed by the failure of seat of the person sitting "behind" you (as their seat fails and their seatback and their weight land squarely on your knees and abdomen). Just imagine a 'survivable' hard impact where the seats have all fallen like dominoes breaking the legs of every passenger except the very rear row of each cabin. Try to evacuate with crushed femors. :-( /not an engineer.