The survivors of recent crashes were sitting at the back of the plane. What does that tell us about airplane safety?

最近坠机事件的幸存者坐在飞机后部，关于飞行安全，这告诉了我们什么？

By Julia Buckley, CNN
12 minute read
Published 6:00 AM EST, Sat January 4, 2025
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Look at the photos of the two fatal air crashes of the last two weeks, and amid the horror and the anguish, one thought might come to mind for frequent flyers.

看看过去两周发生的两起致命空难照片，在恐惧和痛苦中，常旅客可能会冒出一个想法。

The old frequent-flyer adage is that sitting at the back of the plane is a safer place to be than at the front — and the wreckage of both Azerbaijan Airlines flight 8243 and Jeju Air flight 2216 seem to bear that out.

坐在飞机后部比坐在飞机前部更安全，是常旅客的一句老格言。阿塞拜疆航空公司8243航班和济州航空2216航班的残骸似乎都表明了这一点。

The 29 survivors of the Azeri crash were all sitting at the back of the plane, which split into two, leaving the rear half largely intact. The sole survivors of the South Korean crash, meanwhile, were the two flight attendants in their jumpseats in the very tail of the plane.

阿塞拜疆坠机的29名幸存者都坐在飞机后部，飞机分裂成两半部分，后半部分基本完好无损。韩国坠机事件中的幸存者是坐在飞机尾部折椅座位上的两名空姐。

So is that old adage — and the dark humor jokes about first and business class seats being good until there’s a problem with the plane — right after all?

那么，在飞机出现问题之前，头等舱和商务舱座位都挺好是好，这句老话——黑色幽默竟是真的吗？

In 2015, TIME Magazine reporters wrote that they had combed through the records of all US plane crashes with both fatalities and survivors from 1985 to 2000, and found in a meta-analysis that seats in the back third of the aircraft had a 32% fatality rate overall, compared with 38% in the front third and 39% in the middle third.

2015年，《时代》杂志的记者写道，他们梳理了1985年至2000年美国所有飞机失事的死亡和幸存者记录，并在分析中发现，飞机后三分之一的座位总体死亡率为32%，而前三分之一的死亡率为38%，中间三分之一为39%。

Even better, they found, were middle seats in that back third of the cabin, with a 28% fatality rate. The “worst” seats were aisles in the middle third of the aircraft, with a 44% fatality rate.

他们发现，更好的是机舱后三分之一的中间座位，死亡率为28%。“最差”的座位是飞机中间三分之一的过道，死亡率为44%。

But does that still hold true in 2024?

但这在2024年仍然有效吗？

According to aviation safety experts, it’s an old wives’ tale.

根据航空安全专家的说法，这是一个不科学的说法。

“There isn’t any data that shows a correlation of seating to survivability,” says Hassan Shahidi, president of the Flight Safety Foundation. “Every accident is different.”

飞行安全基金会主席Hassan Shahidi说：“没有任何数据显示座位与生存能力的相关性。”“每一次事故都是不同的。”
原创翻译：龙腾网 https://www.ltaaa.cn 转载请注明出处


“If we’re talking about a fatal crash, then there is almost no difference where one sits,” says Cheng-Lung Wu, associate professor at the School of Aviation of the University of New South Wales, Sydney.

悉尼新南威尔士大学航空学院副教授Cheng-Lung Wu说：“如果我们谈论的是一场致命的航空事故，那么一个人坐在哪里几乎没有区别。”

Ed Galea, professor of fire safety engineering at London’s University of Greenwich, who has conducted landmark studies on plane crash evacuations, warns, “There is no magic safest seat.”

伦敦格林威治大学消防安全工程教授Ed Galea对飞机坠毁疏散进行了具有里程碑意义的研究，他警告说：“没有神奇的最安全的座位。”

“It depends on the nature of the accident you’re in. Sometimes it’s better at the front, sometimes at the back.”

“这取决于你所遭遇的事故的性质。有时在前面更好，有时在后面更好。”

However Galea, and others, say that there’s a difference between the seat that has the best chance of surviving an initial impact, and one that allows you to get off the plane quickly. It’s the latter that we should be looking for, they say.

然而，Galea和其他人表示，在初始撞击中最有可能生存的座位和让你快速下飞机的座位之间是有区别的。他们说，我们应该寻找的是后者。

Most plane crashes are ‘survivable’

大多数飞机失事都是“可以生存”的

First, the good news. “The vast majority of aircraft accidents are survivable, and the majority of people in accidents survive,” says Galea. Since 1988, aircraft — and the seats inside them — must be built to withstand an impact of up to 16G, or g-force up to 16 times the force of gravity. That means, he says, that in most incidents, “it’s possible to survive the trauma of the impact of the crash.”

首先是好消息。Galea说：“绝大多数飞机事故都是可以幸存下来的，大多数发生事故的人都能幸存下来。”自1988年以来，飞机及其内部的座椅必须能够承受高达16G的冲击，或高达重力16倍的受力。他说，这意味着在大多数事件中，“有可能在坠机影响的创伤中幸存下来。”

For instance, he classes the initial Jeju Air incident as survivable — an assumed bird strike, engine loss and belly landing on the runway, without functioning landing gear. “Had it not smashed into the concrete reinforced obstacle at the end of the runway, it’s quite possible the majority, if not everyone, could have survived,” he says.

例如，他将最初的济州航空事件分为可生存事件——假定是鸟类撞击、发动机损失和在跑道上腹部着陆，起落架无法正常工作。他说：“如果它没有撞上跑道尽头的混凝土加固障碍物，即使不是所有人，大多数人也很有可能活下来。”

The Azerbaijan Airlines crash, on the other hand, he classes as a non-survivable accident, and calls it a “miracle” that anyone made it out alive.

另一方面，阿塞拜疆航空公司的坠毁被他视为无法幸存的事故，并称其为有人都能活着出来的“奇迹”。

Most aircraft involved in accidents, however, are not — as suspicion is growing over the Azerbaijan crash — shot out of the sky.

然而，大多数遇到事故的飞机并不是被击落的，因此人们对阿塞拜疆坠机事件的质疑越来越大。

And with modern planes built to withstand impacts and slow the spread of fire, Galea puts the chances of surviving a “survivable” accident at at least 90%.

由于现代飞机能够承受撞击并减缓火灾蔓延，Galea认为在“可幸存”的事故中幸存的几率至少为90%。
原创翻译：龙腾网 https://www.ltaaa.cn 转载请注明出处


Instead, he says, what makes the difference between life and death in most modern accidents is how fast passengers can evacuate.

相反，他说，在大多数现代事故中，生死的区别在于乘客疏散的速度。

Aircraft today must show that they can be evacuated in 90 seconds in order to gain certification. But a theoretical evacuation — practiced with volunteers at the manufacturers’ premises — is very different from the reality of a panicked public onboard a jet that has just crash-landed.

今天的飞机必须证明它们可以在90秒内撤离，才能获得认证。但理论上的疏散——志愿者在制造商场地的演习——与飞机上惊慌失措公众的现实截然不同，毕竟飞机刚刚坠毁。

‘Every second counts’
Sitting within five rows of an emergency exit improves your chances of surviving a "survivable" crash, says research. Aviation-images.com/Universal Images Group/Getty Images
Galea, an evacuation expert, has conducted research for the UK’s Civil Aviation Authority (CAA) looking at the most “survivable” seats on a plane. His landmark research, conducted over several years in the early 2000s, looked at how passengers and crew behaved during a post-crash evacuation, rather than looking at the crashes themselves. By compiling data from 1,917 passengers and 155 crew involved in 105 accidents from 1977 to 1999, his team created a database of human behavior around plane crashes.

作为一名疏散专家，Galea为英国民航局（CAA）进行了研究，研究了飞机上最“可生存”的座位。他在21世纪初进行了数年的具有里程碑意义的研究，研究了乘客和机组人员在坠机后疏散期间的行为，而不是看坠机本身。通过汇编1977年至1999年参与105起事故的1917名乘客和155名机组人员的数据，他的团队创建了一个围绕飞机失事的人类行为数据库。
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His analysis of which exits passengers actually used “shattered many myths about aircraft evacuation,” he says. “Prior to my study, it was believed that passengers tend to use their boarding exit because it was the most familiar, and that passengers tend to go forward. My analysis of the data demonstrated that none of these myths were supported by the evidence.”

他说，他对乘客实际使用的哪些出口的分析“打破了许多关于飞机疏散的神话”。“在我研究之前，人们认为乘客倾向于使用他们的登机口，因为它是最熟悉的，而乘客倾向于向前走。我对数据的分析表明，这些神话都没有得到证据的支持。”

Instead, Galea’s research showed that passengers seated within five rows of any emergency exit, in any part of the plane, have the best chance of getting out alive.

相反，Galea的研究表明，在飞机的任何部分，坐在任何紧急出口五排内的乘客都有最好的机会活着出去。

What’s more, those in aisle seats have a greater chance of evacuating safely than those in middle, and then window seats — because they have fewer people to get past to get out.

此外，坐在过道座位上的人比坐在中间和靠窗座的人更有可能安全疏散——因为他们要经过的人更少。

“The key thing to understand is that in an aviation accident, every second counts — every second can make the difference between life and death,” he says, adding that proximity to an exit row is more important than the area of the plane.

他说：“需要了解的关键是，在航空事故中，每一秒都很重要——每一秒都可以影响生死，”他补充说，靠近出口排比飞机的面积更重要。

Of course, not every exit is likely to be usable in an incident — when Japan Airlines flight 516 crashed into a coastguard plane at Tokyo Haneda last January, only three of eight evacuation slides were usable. And yet, because of the exemplary behavior of crew and passengers, who evacuated promptly, all 379 people on the Airbus A350 survived.

当然，并非每个出口都能在事故中可用——去年1月，当日本航空公司516号航班在东京羽田机场撞上一架海岸警卫队飞机时，八个疏散滑梯中只有三个可用。然而，由于及时撤离的机组人员和乘客的模范行为，空中客车A350上的379人全部幸存下来。

Galea — who is currently looking for UK volunteers for February evacuation trials — says it’s still better to pick one exit row to sit close to rather than spread your chances and sit in between two of them, however.

Galea目前正在为2月份的疏散试验寻找英国志愿者，他说，最好选择坐在出口排附近，而不是分散机会，坐在两个出口中间。
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What happens if an exit row — or seats within five rows of it — are not available on your preferred flight? “I look for another flight,” he says. “I want to be as close to an exit as I can possibly be. If I’m nine, 10 seats away, I’m not happy.”

如果您首选的航班上没有出口排——或五排内的座位可选，会发生什么？“我找另一个航班，”他说。“我想尽可能地靠近出口。如果我离9个10个座位远，我就不高兴了。”

‘Chance favors the prepared mind’

机会青睐有准备的人

So you’ve booked your flight and sexted a seat within five rows of the exit. Now is the time to sit back, relax and rely on the pilots and crew, right?

你已经预订了航班，并在出口的五排内选择了座位。现在是坐下来放松并依靠飞行员和机组人员的时候了，对吗？

Not according to Galea, who says there are things we can do onboard that give us the best chance of surviving an incident.

不，根据Galea的说法，我们可以做一些事情，让我们有最好的机会在事件中幸存下来。
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“Chance favors the prepared mind,” is his mantra. “If you’re aware of what you need to do to improve your chances, you’re going to increase your chances of surviving even more. Think about how you’d get out.”

“机会青睐有准备的人”是他的口头禅。“如果你意识到你需要做什么来提高你的机会，你将增加你生存的机会。想想你会怎么出去。”

He says it’s essential, even if you’re a frequent flyer, to listen to the preflight briefing from cabin crew, and understand — really understand — how your seatbelt works.

他说，即使你是常旅客，也必须听取机舱乘务员的飞行前简报，并了解——真正理解——你的安全带是如何运作的。

“Believe it or not, one thing people struggle with [in a crash] is releasing their seatbelt. You’re in a potentially life and death situation and your brain goes into autopilot,” he says. “Most people’s experiences of seatbelts are in cars, where you press a button instead of pulling a latch. A lot of the people we interviewed [who survived plane crashes] had difficulty initially releasing their seatbelts. That’s why it’s important to pay attention to the preflight briefing. All that advice is really valuable.”

“信不信由你，人们“在坠机中”困难的一件事就是松开安全带。你处于生死攸关的境地，你的大脑被本能控制，”他说。“大多数人的安全带体验是在汽车里，在那里你按下一个按钮，而不是拉锁扣。我们采访的许多“在飞机失事中幸存下来”的人，最初很难松开安全带。这就是为什么关注飞行前简报很重要。所有这些建议真的很有价值。”

He also recommends fully studying the evacuation cards in your seat pocket and, if you’re seated at an emergency exit, carefully look at how you’d open it.

他还建议充分研究座位口袋里的疏散卡，如果你坐在紧急出口处，请仔细查看如何打开它。

“That [overwing] exit is quite heavy and will likely fall on top of you,” he says. “I interviewed one of the people onboard the ‘Miracle on the Hudson’ [2009 emergency water landing of US Airways flight 1549]. He was seated by an overwing exit and hadn’t paid attention. As the plane was going down, he got the placard out and studied it. He was an engineer so figured it out — but I think the average person if they hadn’t bothered to read it beforehand, wouldn’t.”

他说：“那个应急出口相当重要，可能会落在你身上。”“我采访了’哈德逊河奇迹（2009年美国航空公司1549号航班紧急水上着陆）’上的一个人。他坐在一个应急出口旁，但没有注意到。当飞机坠落时，他拿出标语牌进行研究。作为一名工程师，他看明白了——但我认为普通人如果事先没有费心阅读它，就不会明白。”

Keep your shoes on until you’ve reached cruising altitude — and put them back on as the plane starts final descent, he says. If you’re a family or traveling with other people, sit together, even if you have to pay — in an emergency, being apart will slow you down as people inevitably try to find each other.

他说，在到达巡航高度前，一直穿着鞋子——当飞机开始最后下降时，也要穿上鞋子。如果你是一个家庭或和其他人一起旅行，即使你必须付钱，也要坐在一起，——在紧急情况下，分开会让你慢下来，因为人们不可避免地试图找到对方。

And wherever you’re sitting, count the number of rows between you and the emergency exit — both in front and behind. That way if the cabin is full of smoke — “one of the main killers” in modern crashes, he says — you can still feel your way to the nearest exit, and have a backup if the closest one to you is blocked.

无论你坐在哪里，都要数一数你和紧急出口之间的行数——包括前面和后面。他说，这样，如果机舱里充满了烟雾——现代坠机事故中的“主要杀手之一”——你仍然可以感觉到去最近的出口，如果离你最近的出口被挡住了，你仍然有备选方案。
原创翻译：龙腾网 https://www.ltaaa.cn 转载请注明出处


“People think you’re a nut,” he says of passengers who carefully watch the preflight briefing, and study the evacuation cards and exit doors before takeoff. “But chance favors the prepared mind. If you’re not prepared, it’s quite likely that things won’t go well.”

“人们认为你是个疯子，”他谈到那些仔细观看飞行前简报，并在起飞前研究疏散卡和出口门的乘客时说。“但机会有利于有准备的人。如果你没有做好准备，事情很可能不会顺利。”

Leave everything — and that means everything — behind

放下一切——也意味着一切——抛在脑后

Geoffrey Thomas knows a thing or two about aircraft safety, too. Now editor of aviation news website 42,000 Feet, he previously spent 12 years as the founder of AirlineRatings, the first website to rank airlines by safety.

Geoffrey Thomas对飞机安全也有所了解。他现在是航空新闻网站42,000 Feet的编辑，此前曾担任AirlineRatings的创始人12年，AirlineRatings是第一个按安全对航空公司进行排名的网站。
原创翻译：龙腾网 https://www.ltaaa.cn 转载请注明出处


Thomas says that the safest structural part of the plane is the wing box — where the wing structure meets the fuselage.

Thomas说，飞机最安全的结构部分是机翼箱——机翼结构与机身相遇的地方。

“Every crash is different but typically in structural failure [an aircraft] will break ahead and behind the wings,” he says, calling the wing box a “very, very strong piece of structure.” That’s the case for the Azerbaijan Airlines crash, which split just after the wings.

“每次坠机都是不同的，但通常在结构故障中，“飞机”会在机翼前面和后面断裂，”他说，并称机翼箱是“非常非常坚固的结构”。阿塞拜疆航空公司的坠机就是这种情况，飞机在机翼发生后就分裂了。
原创翻译：龙腾网 https://www.ltaaa.cn 转载请注明出处


But although Thomas has long suggested sitting over the wing, he says that the passenger behavior of recent years has made him recalibrate. He now believes that “the best seats to have are as close to the exits as possible.” Ideally a wing — but not necessarily.

但尽管托马斯长期以来一直建议坐在机翼上，但他说，近年来的乘客行为让他重新校准。他现在认为，“最好的座位是尽可能靠近出口。”

That’s because, as Galea says, most modern crashes are survivable.

这是因为，正如Galea所说，大多数现代坠机都是可以幸存的。

“Most accidents or emergencies today are not about a total loss of the airplane — it’s something else, an engine fire, an undercarriage failure or a benign overrun,” says Thomas. The main danger after the initial impact is of a fire breaking out and smoke entering the cabin. And while modern composite materials that today’s fuselages are made of can slow the spread of a fire better than aluminum, they can’t slow it forever — meaning evacuation is key to survival.

Thomas说：“今天的大多数事故或紧急情况与飞机的完全损失有关，而是其他事情，发动机起火、下车故障或良性超车。”初始撞击后的主要危险是起火和烟雾进入机舱。虽然当今机身的现代复合材料比铝更能减缓火灾的蔓延，但它们不能永远减缓火灾蔓延——这意味着疏散是生存的关键。

And yet, passengers don’t seem to understand this — or don’t seem willing to understand.

然而，乘客似乎不理解这一点——或者似乎不愿意理解。

“More and more we are seeing that passengers will not leave their bags behind, slowing the egress of the aircraft, and quite often we’ve seen where passengers have not got out because the egress of the plane is slowed up,” says Thomas.

Thomas说：“我们越来越多地看到，乘客不会留下行李，减慢了离开飞机的速度，而且我们经常看到乘客没有撤出来，就是因为离开飞机的速度变慢了。”

In May 2019, Aeroflot flight 1492 crashed at Moscow Sheremetyevo, killing 41 out of 78 onboard in the resultant fire. Passengers were caught on camera evacuating with their hand luggage, even as the back half of the plane went up in flames.

2019年5月，俄罗斯国际航空公司1492号航班在莫斯科谢列梅捷沃坠毁，机上78人中有41人在火灾中丧生。摄像机拍到，即使飞机的后半部分着火了，乘客仍然带着手提行李撤離。

“Aircraft are certified so that every passenger can get off with half the exits shut within 90 seconds, but at the moment the egress of some of these aircraft are five or six minutes, so it’s a very big issue,” he says.

他说：“飞机经过认证，关闭一半的出口的情况下，每位乘客都可以在90秒内撤离，但目前情况，一些飞机的撤离时间为五六分钟，所以这是一个非常大的问题。”

“The other issue you have is that you get lots of videos on social media of the inside of cabins with flames outside and people yelling. People are taking videos instead of getting off the plane.”

“你的另一个问题是，你在社交媒体上有很多机舱内的视频，外面有火焰，人们在尖叫。人们正在拍摄视频，而不是下飞机。”

He believes that filming an evacuation, or evacuating with carry-on bags, should be made a criminal offense. “You are endangering people’s lives,” he says in no uncertain terms.

他认为，拍摄疏散或携带手提袋疏散应构成刑事犯罪。“你正在危及人们的生命，”他毫不含糊地说。

He cites last year’s Japan Airlines crash as a “perfect example” of what is possible. The crew kept calm and evacuated passengers efficiently — and the passengers obeyed the crew. Not one person was seen taking their carry-on luggage with them — and everyone survived.

他引用了去年日本航空公司的坠毁事件作为可能的“完美例子”。机组人员保持冷静，有效地疏散了乘客——乘客们服从了机组人员。没有人看到随身携带行李——每个人都活了下来。

But he says it was an outlier in terms of incidents.

但他说，就事故而言，这是一个异常。

“That’s a cultural thing — if you’ve got a flight attendant screaming at you to leave your bags, that’s what [Japanese passengers] will do. In most other countries people think, ‘Who gives a stuff, I want my bags,’” he says.

“这是一个文化问题——如果有一个空姐对你大喊大叫，让你留下你的行李，（日本乘客）会照做。在大多数其他国家，人们认为，’管他呢，我想要我的包，’”他说。

Now, whenever Thomas flies, he’s in an exit row, and wearing a sportscoat for takeoff and landing, in which he has his passport and credit cards. “So if I have to get out, I can, and I will have everything I need with me,” he says.

现在，Thomas每次飞行时，他都会排在出口处，起飞和降落时穿着运动外套，随身带着护照和信用卡。他说：“因此，如果我必须出去，我可以做到，我会带着我需要的一切。”

“You never, ever know. So many people get on and say, ‘It’ll never happen to me,’ and the next thing they know they’re a statistic. I don’t chance Lady Luck. I’m conscious of the issues and of people’s behavior, and I take steps to ensure that in a situation I hope never happens, I’m in a position to get off and not get blocked by an idiot.”

“你永远不会知道。很多人继续说，“这永远不会发生在我身上”，接下来他们知道的是一个统计数据。我运气不好。我意识到问题和人们的行为，我采取措施确保在我希望永远不会发生的情况下，我能够出去，而不是被一个白痴挡住。”

Once the plane is on the ground, it’s in your hands

一旦飞机落地，它就在你手中

There are other steps you can take to fly safer.

你可以采取其他措施来更安全地飞行。

Shahidi flags turbulence as “one thing passengers can do something about.” He says we should be keeping buckled up at all times. “I wear my belt all the time unless I go to the restroom, and I go there and back very quickly, regardless of what the captain may be saying,” he says. “Statistically, more than 80% of injuries [on aircraft] happen to passengers not wearing seatbelts.”

Shahidi将湍流称为“乘客可以做些什么的一件事”。他说我们应该一直系好安全带。他说：“我去洗手间时来回都很快，否则我一直系着安全带，不管机长在说什么。从统计学上看，（飞机上）80%以上的伤害发生在没有系安全带的乘客身上。”

Wu says he never flies without travel insurance — so that if something happens, and he loses his belongings in an evacuation, he won’t be out of pocket.

Wu说，他从不在没有旅行保险的情况下飞行——这样如果发生什么事，他在疏散中丢失了财物，他就不会掏腰包。

And both Thomas and Galea stress that choosing your airline wisely is also key.

Thomas和Galea都强调，明智地选择航空公司也是关键。

“One rule of thumb is that the really good airlines pay the really good salaries and people want to work for them — the worst pilots have to work for somebody else,” says Thomas, who only flies with the highest rated airlines. Do your research before booking your flight — not all countries have the same high safety standards, he advises, so you need an airline that goes above and beyond on safety, wherever it’s flying, not just one that meets minimum standards.

“一个经验法则是，真正好的航空公司支付真正高的工资，人们想为他们工作——最糟糕的飞行员必须为别人工作，”托马斯说，他只与评级最高的航空公司一起飞行。在预订航班之前，请进行研究——他建议说，并非所有国家都有相同的高安全标准，因此您需要一家超越安全的航空公司，无论它在哪里飞行，而不仅仅是一家符合最低标准的航空公司。

But crucially, remember that in a survivable crash, it’s down to the passengers to act in ways that allow as many as possible to survive.

但至关重要的是，请记住，在可生存的事故中，乘客应以允许尽可能多人生存的方式行事。

“People are fatalistic, they think if they’re going to be in a crash that’s it — so they may as well not bother because everyone’s going to die,” says Galea. “But that’s exactly the opposite of what happens.

Galea说：“人们是宿命论者，他们认为如果他们要发生坠机，那就是了——所以他们可能不想费心，因为每个人都会死。但这与所发生的事实完全相反。

“Just remember, every second counts.”

“记住，每一秒都很重要。”