Investigation says safest seats are in the back of the plane. Where are you going to sit now?
Safest Seat on a Plane: PM Investigates How to Survive a Crash
Given the low odds of an air crash, I’m going to continue to sit up front, so I can get out more quickly when we get to the gate.
The back has much more engine noise, which is a bigger problem for the vast majority of flights.
I agree with both of the replies above me.
It’s not like you get a choice.
I prefer the left-front seat in an airplane, or the right seat in a helicopter.
Where was that Dutch boy in the Libyan crash today sitting? Only survivor he was.
Since the odds on a plane crash are so staggeringly low, I’ll continue to sit as close to the front (and the exit doors) as possible. Also, I find seats in front of the wings to be quieter than those behind, due to engine noise (and I hate sitting over the wing because I can’t see anything). It’s purely a matter of comfort and convenience for me, not of safety.
Huh? Plenty of airlines let you pick your seat when you buy the ticket (of the remaining available seats at the time, obviously, and sometimes with a fee for more desirable window or aisle seats).
When I asked my Dad this question (who is a retired Air Force pilot) his response to me was, “Son, when you put a banana in a blender, it doesn’t matter which end goes in first.”
Cecil said basically the same thing:
The seat by the emergency exit. The crew prefer those seats be taken by volunteers, since someone who wanted that seat is less likely to screw up their job in an emergency than someone who sat there by chance.
Plus, sometimes those seats have a little extra leg room.
Actually it’s the seat you are sitting in with your seatbelt buckled at the time of the event. If you survive the “landing” then it all comes down to how fast you exit the plane. Anecdotal stories indicate may people actually survive the “landing” and are physically able to get up and exit the plane but fail to do so for a variety of reasons. You increase your chances of exiting the plane by sitting in the rear near an exit so when you can you get the f*** as fast as you can.
Over the wing. More room around me, less likely to get airsick.
xkcd reference.
Like the rollover tip says, don’t click on the wing! 
A little? I’m 6’2 and could barely even touch the seat in front of me with my foot on my last flight. I’m requesting exit row no matter the price for every plane trip from here on out.
They always have extra leg room. This makes them attractive for people who want extra legroom - attractive enough that some airlines charge a premium price for these seats. The people who sit there are usually there just for the legroom, and don’t really give a rip about the fact that there’s an emergency exit right there. They’ll pay lip service to the flight attendant’s inquiry about their ability to open the exit in an emergency, but from what I’ve seen it’s not at all a sure thing that they’ll be able to deliver if/when the time comes.
I am capable/willing to open that exit if the need arises, but when I sit there, I do so simply because I want the legroom. Plane crashes are so exceedingly rare that the location of your seat on any given plane doesn’t increase your chances of surviving that flight by very much; maybe sitting in an exit row (or sitting in the back) increases your odds of surviving that flight from 99.999999% 99.9999995%. Either way, your probability of dying on the drive to/from the airport at either end of the voyage dwarfs the risks associated with the airborne portion of the trip.
One problem with the exit row seats (particularly the first row if there are two adjacent rows) is that you can’t recline the seat, probably because it would interfere with an emergency exit. And the bulkhead seats also have lots of legroom, but then you don’t have a seat in front under which to stow your stuff.
Lately I’ve noticed the flight attendants doing a little more to ensure that those sitting in the exit row are prepared to assist. On one flight, she sat down next to these individuals and asked them point-blank if they were willing and able to assist, while looking them straight in the eye. Perhaps the idea is that people might pay better attention to the instructions that way.
I like to sit in the middle over the wing - this is almost always the plane’s center axis of motion, so the ride is smoother. Think of it like sitting at the far end of a teeter-totter, or sitting in the center.
There are so many problems with this study that it’s arguably useless. For starters, I immediately see the 11 out of 20 and think, that means that 9 out of 20 did not favor the back–pretty close call. Then I see they only analyzed accidents for which they could determine seating, leaving out, I assume, many other accidents which could easily have swayed the data one way or another (or not at all). Also, the sample size is tiny. Twenty crashes? Why not increase the pool to international accidents? It’s very difficult to generalize the smaller your sample size is, and twenty is pretty dang small. Researcher bias is another factor–I’m pretty sure they wanted to find a “it’s safer if” result, which could easily skew how they determined where a survivor was sitting (was it just forward of the cut-off line between fore and aft? Why not move the aft section line a bit forward to include that survivor?)Then I see later where they say that only seven of the 11 (but looking at the entire study, we’re talking seven of 20) were “striking” results. That doesn’t sound very conclusive. Anyway, I’m sure I could find more if I thought about it.
I’d have to see the actual magazine to see if any of this was addressed, how they developed their methodology, and whether they provide actual statistical analyses.