Air travel remains the safest form of long-distance transportation. Even as the number of flights worldwide continues to increase year after year, the number of fatal accidents continues to drop. 

But even despite the highly-safe nature of air travel, one may still wonder: where is the safest place to sit onboard an aircraft?

You probably didn't expect this...

The safest place to sit onboard a plane is not the front of the plane, nor is it over the wing, and neither is it in the exit rows. In fact, in the event of an accident, the safest place to sit would be the middle seats at the back of the plane!

No one in their right mind, when assessing where to sit on their flight, would gladly choose a middle seat in the very back of the plane. However. the data does indeed justify that these seats are the safest places to be.

A TIME investigation from 2015 analyzed 35 years of air crash data. From these records, investigators concluded that middle seats in the rear of the aircraft had the lowest fatality rates at just 28%.

The second-safest areas, as uncovered in the aforementioned study, were aisle seats also at the back of the aircraft. The fatality rate in these seats was slightly higher at 44%.

The rear of the aircraft overall is the safest place to sit in the event of an emergency. Though it may seem counterintuitive, this does make sense when you think about it.

This part of the aircraft is far away from the engines or fuel tanks. Therefore, in the unlikely event of incidents involving these systems, passengers sitting in the rear will be least impacted.

It's also not hard to figure out why middle and aisle seats are classified as the safer options to choose from. In the event of an emergency, where an evacuation is necessitated, aisle-seat passengers can get out of their seats and evacuate the quickest, followed by those in middle seats.

Another reason why the middle seats can be viewed as the safest spots is the "protection" offered here. Middle-seat passengers are surrounded on either side by people, and by seats in the front and back.

In the unlikely event of a catastrophe, the cushioning provided to middle-seat passengers could lessen the impact of the said incident on them.

Now, for window-seat passengers seated in exit rows, you could argue otherwise. Being right next to the exit, in addition to being willing and able to operate it, will get you out of harm's way quickest.

However, we must consider that the vast majority of rows in an aircraft do not have an exit door, therefore supporting the idea of the aisle and middle seats being easier to evacuate.

Overall, if you're worried about finding the safest place to sit on an airplane, your best bets are middle and aisle seats towards the back.

For nervous flyers, the one area to avoid would be window seats. This is because, in the event of an emergency, passengers seated in standard window seats will find it the hardest to evacuate. 

Window seats are surrounded by the aircraft wall panel on one side, in addition to a seat in front and behind you. Secondly, the evacuation speed of window seat passengers depends on how quickly the middle and aisle seat occupants (if any) manage to move.

Don't get it twisted...

While the idea of "picking the safest seat" on a plane is unnerving, the reality is that there is really nothing to be worried about.

Flying today is safer than it has ever been, and it continues to become safer by the year. Need more proof? Let's consult the facts provided by the International Air Transport Association (IATA).

Each year, IATA publishes a safety report. Its 2022 Safety Report revealed that there were only five fatal accidents out of nearly 31 million flights worldwide that year. That was a reduction from seven fatal accidents the year before.

Not only this, but the fatality risk declined from 0.23 in 2021 to 0.11 in 2022. According to IATA, a fatality risk of 0.11 means that on average, a person would have to take a flight every day for 25,214 years to experience a completely fatal accident.

In conclusion, while accidents in aviation are very rare, recent studies have shown that there actually are some benefits to sitting in a middle seat and at the very back of the plane.