How to walk away from a plane crash

When Flight 1459 made a dramatic landing in the Hudson River last month, all 155 passengers and crew famously survived. But the US aviation industry had no time to brace itself when only weeks later Flight 3407 crashed in a ball of flames in Buffalo, New York State killing every one of the 49 passengers and crew on board. Then this week Flight 1951 began to break apart as it tried to land in Amsterdam's Schiphol airport. Nine people died but of the 135 on board, 126 survived.

Numerically speaking, the rates of survival from these three terrifying plane crashes read as follows: 155/155, 0/50 and 126/135. In other words, the most recent evidence supports a remarkable plane crash statistic – that aviation disasters have an astonishing 95.7 per cent survival rate. That's according to research done by the US National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) which goes on to say that excluding disasters where nobody had a chance (the likes of Lockerbie and September 11) even in "serious" accidents the survival rate is upwards of 75 per cent. "Contrary to public perception," states the NTSB, "the most likely outcome of an accident is that most of the occupants survived."

Not only are your chances of dying in airline disaster an encouraging one in 11 million, but should your plane be one of the miniscule percentage that do crash every year, the chances are you'll be telling reporters all about it the following day.

Almost invariably, the subsequent reports are given headlines like 'Miracle on the Hudson' and of course plane crashes make great front pages (which is why terrorists regularly target airliners).

Each new story contributes to an unwarranted aura of terror that still surrounds air travel. To make matters worse though to use the word 'miracle' is to deny the skill and training not only of pilots and air crew but also of plane builders and those who develop the in-flight safety cards most people choose to ignore.

People survive plane crashes not because of miracles, but because of testingThe 'Miracle on the Hudson' headline for example initially concealed the fact that a highly-skilled former fighter pilot named Chelsey 'Sully' Sullenburger had used over 40 years of flying experience to perform a perfect 'splash-landing'. It was not thanks to a miracle that everyone survived the Hudson crash, but thanks to exhaustive testing dating back to the 1930s that has resulted in planes designed to be capable of landing in water being flown by pilots, like Sully, who know that to make such a landing the entry speed must be slow, the landing gear retracted, the wing flaps down and the nose of the plane pointing up.

Likewise, the death toll in the Schiphol disaster would have been far worse if it were not for aviation laws introduced in the 1980s which demanded that planes should be less susceptible to bursting into flames and built of materials strong enough to remain more or less in tact even if they hit the ground at more than 150mph.

An airline expert has already described the survival rate at Schiphol as a "tribute to Boeing and Airbus" and said that planes like the Boeing 737-800 that crashed "really are pretty much state-of-the-art airliners with every imaginable technical benefit the industry has come up with over the years".

Just as decades of research has gone into producing flying manuals, so has meticulous testing gone into developing passenger safety procedures. Yet those in-flight cards that can save lives regularly go unread, often because people believe that if the plane goes down, adopting the brace position (whatever that is) won't save them. Not true. Even if your plane is breaking up as it lands, or has smashed into the runway and is now engulfed in flames, there are things you can do to improve your chances of survival.

It is estimated that up to 40 per cent of people who die in plane crashes would have lived if they had known what to do – and, more importantly, hadn't needed the flight attendants to repeat in fraught circumstances which way they should have been moving towards the emergency exit, and how to put on the life jacket before the plane exploded or sunk.

But airlines don't put every life saving tip on the safety card and there are other potentially lifesaving measures you can take.

Wear full length clothing, and sit within seven rows of an emergency exitFlight attendants, for example, are told to cover themselves head to toe with blankets if the plane has to make an emergency landing to minimise burning when fuel explodes. There aren't necessarily blankets for every passenger though – so when flying wear full-length clothing and consider a hooded top.

Do you have a seating preference, sir? You do. Statistics show that most survivors of fatal crashes were seated within seven rows of an emergency exit. Furthermore, aisle seats make it easier to get out of the plane in an emergency, and if you've kept your shoes on you'll be able to walk through a cabin strewn with debris without cutting yourself open.

Know what the brace position is – it is designed to keep you from breaking limbs or being knocked unconscious. Know also that in a rapid decompression you can lose consciousness in 10 seconds, so it really does make sense to put your oxygen mask on before helping others.

Meanwhile, remember that you are much more likely to die during the drive to the airport and the likelihood is that many of the 126 survivors are likely to be  the ones who had read the safety cards, knew how to adopt the brace position and paid attention when trained lifesavers told them that "the emergency exits are here, here, here and here." ·