Is it because the plane will mostly hit nose first on the ground?
Has it ever been a case where people in front died/suffered injuries and the people in the back were fine? Is the back sturdier because it needs to withstand the force of the tail elevators?
In: Physics
I always thought that the safest part of the plane in a crash was sitting by the wings as that part of the plane is reinforced due to the weight of the wing(s)
The safest place to be in a plane is sitting by an emergency exit. They did studies on this.
First off: Chances of surviving a full-on crash in a plane are basically nil.
The good news is that full crashes are incredibly rare – thanks to the immense efforts that the entire avionics industry has put into increasing safety over the decades.
There are still accidents, though – mostly something going wrong during take-off or landing. In these situations, many crashes are survivable – at least for *most* passengers.
If you look at the survivors of these accidents, and map them to the seats they have, you will find that chances of surviving are a bit better in the rear rather than in the front. There can be multiple reasons for this – like if the plane crashes head-on into something, then sitting as far away from that as possible is sure going to help. Or it might be because there is usually an (emergency) exit near… or a combination of both.
But that doesn’t mean it is “safer” to choose seats in the back rows for your flights. These events are so immensely rare, and the advantage so small, that you are still better off choosing a seat where you can get on and off the plane faster (which is usually in the front row rows).
This basis of your question is an assumption, so that alone is already an issue because I’m not sure that it’s true.
In a serious crashed it almost doesn’t matter. I.e. a plane crashing into a mountain. When those who do survive, it’s usually because of sheer luck, like the survivors were in the middle section of the plane, that that is what took the least damage.
A couple of factors that others haven’t mentioned:
You are farther away from the wings, so farther away from the fuel tanks.
The fuselage tends to get smaller towards the back. There are also a lot of reinforcements to provide strength for the control surfaces. These add strength so the tail section is less likely to break apart.
Airplanes nearly always fly forwards, which greatly increases their chances of crashing into things in front of them.
As a result of this, the front of the airplane often explodes harder than the back of the airplane due to the front of the airplane being hit by things first and cushioning some of the blow.
Have you ever seen an airplane back into a mountain?
Two big crashes with survivors came to mind:
[Air Florida 90](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Air_Florida_Flight_90) which fell into the Potomac and sunk. All of the survivors were in the tail area.
[United 232](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_Airlines_Flight_232) which crashed in Sioux City, Iowa. Most of the survivors were in the overwing area or forward.
Bertrand Russell survived a plane crash due to being in the smoking section at the rear – [Bukken Bruse disaster – Wikipedia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bukken_Bruse_disaster)
Don’t forget the inertia. All loose objects (and people) in the moment of the hit are flying from the back to the front and hitting whatever they meet in the front of them. If you are safely attached in the back, there is a smaller chance of getting some hard suitcase or a 200km/h trolley in your head. If you are not strapped correctly, it is you who is flying to the front.
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