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
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).
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