The world always looks on in shock when a big airliner goes down. Such terror. So many lives lost.

But then, sometimes, there’s a miracle. Someone (or more) survives. But is it really a miracle, or is it rather good positioning?

While experts put your odds of dying in a plane crash in the millions, it’s amazing how many of us (humans) worry about fate dishing us those very odds.

In 2007, Popular Mechanics analyzed NTSB data for every commercial plane crash in the U.S. since 1971 that had both survivors and fatalities, and for which a detailed seating chart was accessible.

Their conclusion? Passengers near the tail of a plane are far more likely to survive a crash than those in the front.

That’s right – the ‘ass end’ is where you want to be.

According to our mates at HuffPo:

Seats in the back of the plane, behind the trailing edge of the wing, had a 69 percent survival rate, while seats over the wing and in coach had a 56 percent survival rate. The front 15 percent of seats had a 49 percent survival rate, analysts found.

A second analysis in 2015, for which researchers at Time went through 35 years of FAA data, found similar results. The group narrowed their research to 17 accidents dating back to 1985 that had both fatalities and survivors and for which seating charts were available. Time found seats in the rear third of the aircraft had a lower fatality rate (32 percent) than seats in the overwing (39 percent) or front (38 percent) thirds of the plane.

Specifically, middle seats in the rear section specifically fared best by far, with a fatality rate of 28 percent.

That’s pretty impressive. So if you want to enhance your chances of surviving your next plane crash, where the odds of it going down are close to zero, get a middle seat at the back, to give you the edge you need.

And the worst seats? They’re not in the front of the plane as you may have thought. Nope – it’s the middle of the plane.

The fatality rate in the middle third of the cabin is 44 percent.

Sit there and you’re basically tickets.

[source:huff]