Is There a Most Secure Seat on a Plane?

For those who feel anxious about flying, you might wonder if there’s actually a safest spot on the aircraft. Is a window seat statistically safer than an aisle seat? Does sitting near an exit row make a difference? And what about the front compared to the back of the plane?

One of the most comprehensive and widely referenced studies on this subject remains the 2015 analysis by Time, which examined 35 years of data from the FAA’s Aircraft Accident Database. The reporters focused on incidents that had both survivors and fatalities, where seating chart details were accessible—narrowing it down to 17 flights between 1985 and 2000.

According to the findings, Time indicated that seats at the back of the plane were marginally safer, with a fatality rate of 32 percent, compared to 39 percent in the middle section and 38 percent in the front. When considering seat position within a row, the research revealed that the rear middle seats offered the best survival odds (28 percent fatality), while aisle seats in the middle section had the highest risk (44 percent).

Nonetheless, the Time study recognized that there’s an element of unpredictability involved: “Ultimately, the likelihood of dying in a plane crash is influenced less by your seating location and more by the specifics of the accident. If the tail end of the aircraft absorbs the impact, passengers in the front or middle might survive better than those in the rear. We observed that survival outcomes were erratic in several cases—those who died were often mixed in among survivors. This is why the FAA and airline safety experts maintain that no seat is definitively the safest on the plane.”

Air safety expert and journalist Christine Negroni has authored two books on aviation disasters: Deadly Departure (William Morrow, 2000) and The Crash Detectives (Penguin, 2016), and she remains skeptical about the validity of existing studies on seat positions.

“The limited studies that have been conducted are problematic for various reasons,” Negroni states. “They concentrate solely on fatal accidents, which account for just 5 percent of all airline incidents. Since these studies do not reflect the full picture, I find them lacking in significance.”

Negroni argues that linking outcomes to seat placement overlooks numerous complex factors that influence survival: the site of the initial impact, the effectiveness of safety equipment (like seat belts, oxygen masks, aisle lighting, etc.), the readiness of flight crew to assist, external dangers, and more.

“These elements, among many others, create a multifaceted view of survivability that is absent from a simplistic analysis of each fatal plane crash alongside the seat assignments of deceased passengers,” Negroni clarifies. “Moreover, this doesn’t indicate whether a passenger died in that specific seat or elsewhere during evacuation.”

Negroni contends that many of these studies overlook how survivable most airplane incidents can actually be. She has personally experienced two emergency landings—“the type with foam on the runway and ambulances at the ready.” From these experiences, she asserts, “I see the misconception behind the common belief: that people don’t survive plane crashes. Oh yes, they do.”

She adds, “Since most air accidents are survivable, the actions passengers take before, during, and after the event are much more likely to influence their safety than their seat location on the plane.” This serves as a powerful reminder that even seemingly minor details during a flight serve important safety purposes: why seats must be upright during takeoff and landing, why window shades are frequently opened, and why cabin lights may be dimmed.

For instance, she references the 2013 crash of Asiana Airlines Flight 214, where a Boeing 777 from South Korea clipped the seawall while landing short of the runway in San Francisco. “The back of the plane was ejected and the front spun around, crashing back down,” Negroni explains. Remarkably, only two out of 307 passengers and crew members lost their lives, with a third succumbing to injuries in the hospital the following week. “This was a high-impact accident that could have been catastrophic. Yet, the two fatalities resulted from the fact that neither passenger had their seat belt fastened at the moment of landing.”

According to the National Transportation Safety Board’s accident report, the two individuals who perished in the crash are identified by their seat numbers, 41B and 41E (41B was actually seated in 41D during the incident). If a study merely linked seat assignments to survival odds, it might suggest that their position in the second-to-last row of the Boeing 777 had a greater influence on their deaths than the reality of their unfastened seat belts.

In essence, before allowing these studies to sway your seating choices, keep in mind that your seat position is just one minor (and largely random) factor in the broader safety equation during an emergency. Instead, it’s far more crucial to heed instructions and pay attention to the crew throughout the flight.