WSJ: Training for a Plane Crash
 

Last week's "The Middle Seat" column was about how passengers can better prepare themselves, in order to increase their chances of surviving a plane crash. Here's the link:

Wall Street Journal - "The Middle Seat"
Training for a Plane Crash
British Airways Puts Fliers in Mock Disasters; How to Get a Head Start
(September 29, 2011)

There are several excellent tips in the article. Whenever I take a seat on an airline, I note the closest emergency exits... but I have not been counting rows as the article suggests.

Some eye opening stuff. My hat is off to all f/a's.

According to my engineer brother at Boeing, the strongest structural point in the fusulage is where the wings attach (the exit rows).

It's also where all the flamable fuel is..........

Yes, the fuel is the pesky little problem. The NTSB has very detailed charts on fatalities and injuries for most crashes. In the cases of low speed crashes it is eye opening to see how people died. People in the front often die from blunt force trauma, people in the back from smoke inhalation. People above the wings though often die from "thermal injuries", which is a polite way of saying "burned to death". I'm sorry, but that would be my last choice for death on any given day.