Discovery TV conducted a test crash of a Boeing 727 in the Sonoran Desert of Arizona to learn more about what actually happens to passengers when a plane goes down, reports New York aviation accident attorney Jonathan C Reiter. The test, which was staged last spring after four years of preparation, found that simply bracing for impact could save lives of passengers.
The test was conducted in the name of airline safety, and included a Boeing 727 equipped with over a half-million dollars worth of crash test dummies, 38 specialized cameras and sensors and a crew of pilots. The pilots wore parachutes and bailed out of the hatch in the back of the plane just before impact.
Professor of biomedical engineering at Wayne State University, Cindy Bir, was in charge of the dummies, examining them immediately after the plane hit the desert ground in order to decide what types of injuries may have been sustained.
As she looked over the dummies, she explained, “I suspect…one may have a concussion, one may have a broken leg…” before telling ABC News that her data made clear the fact that bracing for impact could increase a passenger’s chance of survival. Bracing for impact involves placing one’s head down and putting one’s hands over it.
During the crash, which was a nose first belly flop, passengers near the front bore the brunt of the impact. Rows one through seven were considered the “fatal” seats.
Many of the seat-belted dummies that weren’t bent over in the bracing position incurred spinal injuries from jerking forward in their seats.
The professor also simulated a woman holding an infant in her lap – a familiar one-seat money saving move often seen on airlines. The test discovered that this situation was highly unsafe, after it was determined the adult could not hold on to the child.
Aside from the force of impact that caused injury, the plane’s debris was also noted as a potential threat to those who were sitting upright. Also, it was decided that sitting within five rows of an exit gave passengers the best odds for escape after impact.
An MIT study that drew on worldwide airline safety data from 2000-2007 found that the chance of dying on a scheduled flight in developed nations was one in 14 mil
