Revealed: Real reason why certain seats are the safest to sit on a plane

Daily Mail​

a day ago

The seat allocated to British father-of-one Vishwash Kumar Ramesh at check-in on Thursday morning at Ahmedabad airport sealed his fate as the sole survivor in a crash that has now claimed the lives of more than 260 people, aviation experts have said.
While specialists maintain that 'every crash is different', Mr Ramesh's exact position on the doomed Boeing 787-8 Dreamliner, which crashed less than a minute after take-off after a catastrophic loss of power, gave him a 'better than average chance' of escaping the wreckage.
His seat, 11A, was in the first row of economy - known as the 'bulkhead' seats, which was the fourth row on the plane after three rows of business class seats.
The bulkhead row that Mr Ramesh, who's from Leicester, sat in would been afforded him vital extra leg room that would have earned him crucial seconds to flee in the moments after the devastating impact.
Seat 11A was also adjacent to the emergency exit, offering the sole survivor the quickest route to escape, according to York University aviation expert Professor John Alexander McDermid.
The aviation expert told MailOnline that Mr Ramesh likely had less than ten seconds to flee the igniting aircraft, which was carrying a full load of fuel.
On the ill-fated Air India flight, seat 11A proved to be the 'miracle seat' and, while experts maintain that the safest seats on a plane is largely 'a lottery', based on a complex chain of events, there are some areas on every plane that have, it's widely agreed, a stronger chance of absorbing impact - lessening the chance of passengers death or injury.
THE BULKHEAD SEATS
One of the best seats on an aircraft if you're in economy from a comfort point of view, the bulkhead seats refer to the first row of seats when cabin class changes - for example, from business class to economy.
On larger aircraft, they're often directly behind a cabin crew service area and toilets, affording more space, from a safety point of view to escape in the event of an accident.
They're also often right next to the emergency exit doors. Mr Ramesh's seat on the Air India flight saw him sat in 11A, which was a bulkhead seat and as close to the emergency exit door as he could be.
EMERGENCY EXIT SEATS
Mr Ramesh, 40, told media following the crash yesterday that his position next to the emergency exit saved his life.
He said: 'The side of the plane I was in landed on the ground, and I could see that there was space outside the aircraft, so when my door broke I tried to escape through it and I did.'
As seen in the graphic above, the bulkhead and emergency seats on larger planes, including the Air India Boeing 787-8 Dreamliner, are often in the same row.
Aviation expert Professor John Alexander McDermid, from the University of York, told MailOnline that being seated near in close proximity of an emergency exit is likely to give passengers a better chance of survival in the event of a crash.
He said: 'Did he [Mr Ramesh] have a better than average chance of survival because of where he was sat? The intuitive answer is yes.
'There's a bit more space around the emergency exit - and he could then get out of the aircraft quickly.'
THE FINAL ROW OF THE PLANE
Where airlines place their black boxes, the information hubs - usually a vibrant orange colour - that offers vital data following an accident?
In the tail of the plane, which tells passengers that being seated in the final row of the plane is likely one of the safest places.
Says Professor McDermid: 'The black boxes are close to the tail of the plane, and there's a reason for that - they're much more likely to survive the impact there than anyway else.'
He added that, when it comes to 'any distribution of risk', being near the back is a wise idea.
SEATS BY THE WINGS
The wings of a plane generate the lift that helps an aircraft take off the ground and are vital to turning and landing.
Being seated by one ensures if an airline crashes, there's a chance the wing could soak up some of the impact, leaving those in the rows closest to them slightly better protected than in other places on the plane.
Professor McDermid told MailOnline: 'Emergency exits that are over a wing are going to be better protected, they give you structural strength.'
A 2015 study by Time magazine, which collected 35 years of crash data from the Federal Aviation Administration, found that the rear seats in an aircraft had a fatality rate of 32 percent while front seats had a 38 percent fatality rate.
However, for those in the middle of the plane, it was only 29 percent - but still higher than in other areas of the aircraft.