Not exactly reassuring to those who believe in gaming the odds.

For whatever reason, there is a strong belief that the back of the plane is safer than the front. Type that question into Yahoo or Google and you'll see dozens of sites testifying to that "fact."  But that view is based on amateur analyses done of plane crashes that occurred as far back as the early 1970s; aircraft design has changed dramatically since then. Plus, accidents are so rare these days, it's difficult to suss out a pattern for why some people survive and some don't. In yesterday's crash, for example, the fatalities were at both the very front and the far back of the plane.

In the wake of a recent string of survivable accidents--starting with Continental's Denver airport mishap in late 2008 and continuing through the Hudson River splashdown--more attention is being paid to how evacuations are handled. Studies have shown that passenger awareness of exit locations, crew instructions, and pre-flight announcements does, in fact, make a difference. Keep in mind that 95 percent of people involved in air crashes in the U.S. have survived; even in the most serious crashes, in which people were killed or the plane was totaled, more than half of those aboard escaped. About two-thirds of all crashes take place during takeoff or landing, which means the plane is near an airport and is likely moving at a relatively slow speed.

Bill Voss, the head of the Flight Safety Foundation, told me he thinks those odds have been greatly improved with newer aircraft design: "A lot of these people are walking away from these events," he said. In yesterday's crash, he noted, the absence of a fire led some to conclude the plane ran out of fuel, but there's no evidence to support that theory. "They must be doing something better in the fuel tank design."

Further reading:
* The Great Escape (Condé Nast Traveler)
* Top 10 Airline Safety Questions (Airsafe.com)
* On the Fly: The airline industry