The Safest Airplane Seats

I was working on this blog prior to the unfortunate and fatal Travis Barker and DJ AM private jet crash, but I'm guessing that these two lucky survivors (two other passengers died along with the two co-pilots) sat in seats consistent with the below findings:

In July 2007, Popular Mechanics analyzed and examined crash data from every commercial jet crash in the U.S. since 1971 that had both fatalities and survivors (20 in total). They scoured NTSB (National Transportation and Safety Board) files for hundreds of hours to arrive at the following conclusion:

"The farther back you sit, the better your odds of survival. Passengers near the tail of a plane are about 40 percent more likely to survive a crash than those in the first few rows up front."

"In 11 of the 20 crashes, rear passengers clearly fared better. Only five accidents favored those sitting forward. Three were tossups, with no particular survival pattern. In one case, seat positions could not be determined."

Whenever I fly Southwest or other airlines with open seating, I always head to the rear of the airplane because I've found I'm more likely to have an empty middle seat next to me (I prefer windows). Now, I have another reason to skip the first 15 rows.