First class is great.
You board first, get served drinks first, and in the event of disaster, potentially die first.
Wait, what?
Unfortunately for those travelers who like to spend a little extra on their seats, the best available research all points toward first-class passengers facing the greatest risk of death in any part of the airplane's cabin in the (incredibly unlikely) event of a crash landing.
The evidence to back up this grisly and cosmically unfair outcome is pretty sizable.
In 2012, scientists and engineers intentionally crash-landed an entire Boeing 737 — they literally destroyed the thing on purpose — to see how well the plane kept its passengers safe.
Upon inspection, the researchers found seats in the middle of the cabin and toward the back of the plane seemed to fare the best. Grease paint strewn around the cabin revealed the crash-test dummies had been thrown around quite a bit. Many had their ankles broken from the weight of their torsos falling onto their bent legs.
Fortunately, those near the exit rows probably would have made it out OK, as would the more mobile passengers toward the rear of the plane.
Those up front, however, faced a far darker outcome.
For starters, the cockpit got fully ripped off from the rest of the cabin. And the first class seats behind them got so mangled in the wreckage that one seat — seat 7A — got tossed more than 500 feet from the crash site.
The crash-landing experiment isn't the only data to suggest first class comes with serious risks. In June of last year, TIME magazine discovered first-class passengers actually faced a 38% fatality risk in the event of a crash, while those in the far back faced a 28% risk.
There's some solace: crashes are highly unlikely. The most dangerous parts of any flight — already an ultra-safe way to travel — are during takeoff and landing. Unexpected problems in-flight are a rarity.
That doesn't stop the perennially anxious from making flying decisions based on irrational fears.
If you're one of those people — the kind to sit behind the wing because it's marginally safer during catastrophe — consider avoiding first class the next time you fly.
You'll save your money and your sanity.
