Bracing for Impact

Last spring, Discovery TV staged a Boeing 727 plane crash in Mexico’s Sonoran desert to test the effects of a “belly-flop” plane crash on passengers. The test crash, reported about recently by ABC News, found that bracing for impact (placing one’s head down towards the legs and putting hands over one’s head) could help a passenger survive a crash. According to ABC News, a review of the crash test dummies in the plane revealed such things as:

• the front rows held the “fatal” seats;

• dummies not in the braced position incurred spinal injuries from jerking forward;

• sitting upright subjects passengers to flying debris; and

• sitting within five rows of an exit increased the chance of survival.

The chances of being in such a crash aren’t high, though. The article cites a Massachusetts Institute of Technology study that found the chance of dying on a scheduled flight in developed nations was one in 14 million.