All The Action Is In The Back

Best_seat

If you listen to certain airline officials, they’ll tell you that that there is no particular seat on a modern air liner that is safer than another.

They’re making that up.

In reality, the seats toward the back of an air liner are safer than those at the front.

Keep that in mind the next time you travel by air . . . or just the next time you watch Lost.

I’ve got a number of airline journeys lined up the next few months.

I’ll be sitting in the back.

As every good Catholic knows, it’s where the action is.

GET THE STORY.

Author: Jimmy Akin

Jimmy was born in Texas, grew up nominally Protestant, but at age 20 experienced a profound conversion to Christ. Planning on becoming a Protestant seminary professor, he started an intensive study of the Bible. But the more he immersed himself in Scripture the more he found to support the Catholic faith, and in 1992 he entered the Catholic Church. His conversion story, "A Triumph and a Tragedy," is published in Surprised by Truth. Besides being an author, Jimmy is the Senior Apologist at Catholic Answers, a contributing editor to Catholic Answers Magazine, and a weekly guest on "Catholic Answers Live."

50 thoughts on “All The Action Is In The Back”

  6. As every good Catholic knows, it’s where the action is.
    Nonsense. Gallantry is order of the day. To the front we go! Plus, isn’t that were all the booze is?

  7. … and protect us from all anxiety …
    Some people’s anxiety is reduced by having detailed safety information, for others it is increased just by thinking about such contigencies.
    Before my last flight, I checked the safety history of the make and model I was flying on. The results were more complicated than Jimmy’s example, with seats near exits having more survivors, unless they were near engines. As this was a popular and established model, it seemed to suffer from an alarmingly huge number of accidents and near misses. This was emotionally disconcerting despite my relatively sophisticated appreciation of statistics.
    Air travel is very safe compared with other modes, mainly because it is so highly regulated by governments, with incidents exhaustively documented and lessons often learned. If every motorist did the equivalent checks before starting a car journey, tried to learn from near misses (rather than simply blaming others) and was as self-controlled and self-disciplined …
    To get things into rational perspective. If you are worried about flying, don’t forget about controlling your risks in Driving – speed/attitude/seatbelt/maintenance/DUI, Lifestyle – smoking/diet/exercise/alcohol/drugs, installing smoke alarms or even whether keeping a gun at home is more risky than beneficial. Most of these are more likely to kill us and those we love than flying is ever likely to.

  8. My life belongs to the Lord and he will take it when it suits him. Certainly I take all precautions to be as safe as possible. I don’t drink, drive aggressively, smoke, or stand under tall trees during storms. At the end of the day, if the plane goes down or lightning strikes me dead, it was just my time. If we live this life right, then there is a better one to come.
    “But of that day or hour, no one knows, neither the angels in heaven, nor the Son, but only the Father. Be watchful! Be alert! You do not know when the time will come.”

  9. I highly recommend the site – http://www.seatguru.com
    You can look up any plane for any airline and view which seats have extra legroom, limited recline, good views for the movie, power ports, etc.
    Sadly, I cannot recommend sitting in the back. The way to go is by upgrading to first class, especially on a long flight.

  10. As every good Catholic knows, it’s where the action is.

    Har!
    Of course in many parishes more Catholics do sit in the back… but I doubt if the percentage of good Catholics varies in proportion to the proximity to the rear of the nave. An inverse relationship seems more likely. :‑D

  11. “near misses”
    Can I object to calling it a “near miss” for a minute? I think we oughta call it a “near hit.” You know, if two planes collide with each other on the runway, then one could say, “look at that. that was a near miss.” Yeah, it was a near miss, but at the last minute they hit each other!
    Likewise, if tragedy is barely averted as a plane veers onto the grass at the last minute to avoid running over a baggage handler, then we can safely say, “that was a near hit!” because they nearly hit the guy and then didn’t.
    George Carlin had a bit where he talked about such things. If I remember right he also objected to calling the cockpit the “flight deck”.

  13. So first class passengers pay 4 times as much as coach for a 20% less chance of surviving a crash?
    Anyway back in the early 80s a British air traffic controller named David Gunson taped a very funny after dinner speech called “What goes up might come down”. In it he advised that you should sit at the back of the plane because airplanes have never been known to reverse into hills. And to be extra safe you should find out which seat has the black box under it, because if that’s the only part of the plane they expect to recover, you should be strapped to it!

  15. The safest seat on a plane is the one right next to Fr. Corapi.
    Amen!
    There’s even a lesson in here that Father C. could use in one of his fire & brimstone homilies; first class passengers get to sit up front because it’s quieter and not as bumpy. It’s comfortable and luxurious, but when the END comes, well… “the first shall be last, and the last shall be first”!

  16. I heard that it’s better to sit in the back because if something happens to the plane, it mostly does a nose dive and people in the back have a shorter ways to be pulled back before they hit their head, then when the plane does crash the people in front act like shock absorbers. Just a little something gruesome to think about.

  17. Great, I’m flying to San Diego next week for a wedding. Now I’ll have this discussion in the front of my mind, instead of WAAAY in the back where it should be. Our seats are in Jimmy’s “green” section. But I’ll accept God’s plan willingly! If it’s my time to go, that’s fine. I just pray it’s not the pilot’s time to go. 😉

  18. ‘thann, I prophecy that your pilot will be raptured on that flight…I know I’m right. It has to be true ’cause I read it in a book.

  19. “near misses”
    Can I object to calling it a “near miss” for a minute? I think we oughta call it a “near hit.”
    No, it’s a miss. But they were near, so it’s a “near miss”.

  20. Hm, whenever I fly, due to my disability I’m placed in one of the front rows of coach. I walk onto the plane with crutches, and it’s a bit of a pain maneuvering down that narrow isle with said crutches. Even so, with this new info, ya think maybe I should insist on them NOT placing me in the very front as is their custom?

  22. I can’t help but be not entirely convinced. This is a very limited set of data. First, according to the article, it looks at only the twenty crashes that include both fatalities and survivors. But there have been more commercial crashes in the United States since 1971. Assuming for the sake of argument that planes that crash more often have no survivors than 100% survival rate, that skews the stats. Second, there is only a 20 percentage point difference in survival rate in the plane crashes that fit the criteria used for the article. Is that statistically significant? There is no way to know given that they didn’t give any confidence intervals. I doubt it is very significant given that 1/4 of the crashes looked at had a lower fatality in the front (the supposed more dangerous area) than the back. Some of the crashes had only a handful of survivors while some had only a handful of fatalities.
    I think the “experts” are not making anything up; there really is no statistically significant advantage to sitting in the rear of a plane. But if it makes you feel better, go for it.

  23. I don’t care where the safest seats in a plane are. I have a horror of heights–I get physically ill from looking out the windows in my own attic. All of you can fight over the “best seat” in something that is going to take you up in the SKY???
    Yoicks. What ever happened to stagecoaches??

  24. I don’t care where the safest seats in a plane are. I have a horror of heights–I get physically ill from looking out the windows in my own attic. All of you can fight over the “best seat” in something that is going to take you up in the SKY???
    Yoicks. What ever happened to stagecoaches??
    Almost in the same vein as “My Cat’s Name is Lily” above, although I had heard this once before (re: the safest place is in the back of the plane), what’s the use of surviving a plane crash when you might end up severely injured and handicapped?
    Better that death comes and I meeting the Lord than to have to live out my life without limbs.
    I know with the Grace of God anything is possible; but this is a trial I would prefer to do without!

  25. Keep that in mind the next time you travel by air . . . or just the next time you watch Lost.
    …And don’t fly with Oceanic Airlines, play the lotto with The Numbers, or fly on an airplane flight numbered 815…
    crickets

  26. Almost in the same vein as “My Cat’s Name is Lily” above, although I had heard this once before (re: the safest place is in the back of the plane), what’s the use of surviving a plane crash when you might end up severely injured and handicapped?
    What makes you think the front of the plane guarantees you will not be handicapped?
    And as for the use, perhaps you should talk to severely handicapped people before you dismiss their lives as useless. For one thing, you assert,
    Better that death comes and I meeting the Lord than to have to live out my life without limbs.
    but how would you know? Have you lived without limbs?

  27. Better that death comes and I meeting the Lord than to have to live out my life without limbs.
    It is better for you to enter life maimed or crippled than to have two hands or two feet and be thrown into eternal fire.

  30. I’m sure Esau isn’t saying that if he lost his limbs he would want to commit suicide or have someone else kill him. I assume this just from his previous posts on this blog. I’m not sure it is neccessary to say a person should always prefer life on Earth, no matter how much suffering you are in. Certainly you can’t choose to die before circumstances take you, but if you are relatively confident that you will be happier in heaven than in your life here a certain longing for heaven, gotten through death, becomes natural. As St. Augustine said, death is good for the good and bad for the bad (then again, the same is true of earthly suffering, and earthly happiness, which helps explain why personal goodness usually has little to do with earthly happiness or longevity; the bad are cursed by whatever they get and the good are blessed by whatever they get. A thing is received according to the manner of the one receiving it).

  31. JR– I think you’re right.
    Although, from a different angle, wouldn’t we *all* rather be in heaven than in any state on earth? So it’s a slightly silly thing to say… just like it’s silly to read “I would rather be with God than on earth and maimed” and reply with “it’s better to be on earth than in hell!”
    Come on, y’all, some *humor*, eh? (I refuse to start throwing around the demands for charity that seem to be in vogue now. Instead, I ask that folks try to see the joy/humor in life.)

  32. I think we all agree that we desire to do God’s will whether it be to be with Him sooner or later. My own prayer regards death is that it will be shortly after leaving the confessional, and ideally with a good priest nearby for extreme unction.
    God Bless,
    Matt

  33. J.R. Stoodley,
    Thanks for sticking up for me in my absence.
    I believe you better represent my thoughts in this regard.

  34. Mary,
    And as for the use, perhaps you should talk to severely handicapped people before you dismiss their lives as useless.
    Before you continue to maliciously slander me, just where did I say handicapped people were useless?
    I said the trial might be one too unbearable for me.
    Thus I said:
    “I know with the Grace of God anything is possible; but this is a trial I would prefer to do without!”
    For one thing, you assert,
    Better that death comes and I meeting the Lord than to have to live out my life without limbs.
    but how would you know? Have you lived without limbs?
    When I was in elementary school, during Summer, I read the autobiography of Jodi who was a Christian girl that suddenly became paralyzed. From what I remember, before even triumphing over this, there was so much trial and tribulation she underwent as a result (especially being that she used to lead a very active lifestyle). She even considered suicide herself but eventually conquered her fears — but it was not without much pain and tremendous hardship as she used to remember her previous life.
    Also, I used to volunteer for Apostolic Work when I was in High School and worked with such people. There are those who live quite happy lives, but for those who struggle with it, it’s a painful burden.
    So, go on Mary — release some more of your rabid ill-will and sentiments; it’s not surprising considering the source.

  36. Esau writes:
    Better that death comes and I meeting the Lord than to have to live out my life without limbs.
    I don’t think you meant it this way, but in our current cultural climate, their are way too many people out there trying to convince us that being incurably sick or severely handicapped is worse than death, and that we should therefore be “merciful” and euthanize the unfortunate folks who find themselves in such situations. Again, I don’t think that’s where you were going, but I’d hate to feed the dragons.

  38. Although, from a different angle, wouldn’t we *all* rather be in heaven than in any state on earth? So it’s a slightly silly thing to say…
    Indeed, we would all be happier in heaven than here on earth, and also the natural, intended state of human nature is a united body and soul, so the situation is more complicated than what I said. I could write a paper on it.
    Basically though on a human level if you are fairly happy on earth you are generally going to prefer to have that happiness remain and grow in your relationship with God in that context for a while (with heaven something you abstractly look forward to in the distant future), and this tendancy will be augmented by the natural instinct for self-preservation.
    On the other hand those in intense suffering on earth, and especially those with little or no hope of improvement, have no such contentment with how things currently are, and if this suffering is strong enough the desire to end that suffering can override the instinct to preserve your life. The key distinction is that the good will accept the suffering as an opportunity from God to increase in personal holiness and add something to the sufferings of Christ, while still longing in a more human sense for heaven. The bad will just want to take matters into their own hands and end the life that God has given them before He decides they are done.

  40. st. Jimbob of the Apokalypse,
    LOL!
    Noone from the tail, except Benard and Cindy, survived a month. Don’t forget Eko-the smoke monster beat his head against a tree!

  41. It would be interesting to see where most of the survivors were in the Thai crash that happened today. Almost half of the people died.
    May the Lord have mercy on their souls and grant them eternal rest.

  42. As far as “I’ll be sitting in the back. As every good Catholic knows, it’s where the action is.” is quite strange to me. Back in my charismatic days we were always told that it was up front where the power fell. When I came to the belief of the real presence (John 6) and started RCIA there was never a question about sitting up front. Come on if it was Bob Dyan you would want front row seats. I have also been told by a priest that they don’t notice the people up front. Oh, and there is plenty of room in the first pew also.

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