How to survive a plane crash? Well, you can be lucky. Or you can take matters into your own hands.

Planes have always crashed. The first fatal accident occurred in 1908, just five years after the Wright brothers completed the earliest controlled, sustained and heavier-than-air flight. The pilot of the plane involved in the crash, in which one passenger died? Orville Wright himself.

But there are crashes and crashes. Some, patently, cannot be survived. Others, however – the vast majority, in fact – can be. A US government study found there were 568 plane crashes in the US between 1993 and 2000, involving a total of 53,487 passengers and crew. Of these, 51,207 – or over 90 per cent survived. Even on the 26 crashes deemed the worst, the study found that more than half the passengers and crew survived.

Contrary to popular statistical myth, however, air travel is not the safest form of transport – rail travel is safer in terms of accidents per journey and accidents per hour travelled (air travel wins only in accidents per mile travelled). But what is true, contrary to expectation, as the study reveals, is the survivability of most crashes. More to the point, the study found that a third of those who died – smoke and fire accounted for most deaths – would almost certainly have survived if they'd taken certain precautions.

So what are these precautions? Well, as you'd imagine, it's an imprecise science, heavy with claim and counter-claim, with some precautions rendered useless in certain crashes. But there are areas on which all agree. Here is a checklist that might just save your life.

Have a plan

This is the key. Time and again, having a notion of what you are going to do in the event of a crash or forced landing has been found to be fundamental to survival.

First, really do listen to the safety announcement and read the safety card, and if you don't, then at the very least know exactly where to find the nearest exits. Actually count the number of rows from your seat to exits in front and behind you – the chances are you might be trying to find your way to an exit in pitch dark and/or thick smoke.

Bear in mind that – unfortunately – you may have several minutes' warning before impact, so use the time to go through any plan again.

Read the instructions and have a plan Credit: ALAMY

The safest seats

Although some claim that seats over the wing of an aircraft are best (because the plane is “strongest” there), popular opinion has it that, in the event of a plane crash, the rear of an aircraft is the safest place to be. This theory is supported by several studies and a 2013 Channel 4 documentary.

The producers of the show, The Crash, arranged for a Boeing 727 carrying cameras, sensors and crash test dummies with breakable “bones” to be deliberately crashed into the Sonoran Desert in Mexico. After hitting the ground, the front of the plane and the first 11 rows of seats – usually reserved for first-class, business-class or premium-economy passengers – were ripped off. A force of 12G was recorded in this section of the aircraft. Further back, the force fell to around 6G. Experts concluded that none of the plane’s first-class passengers would have survived, but 78 per cent of the other passengers would have, with the chance of survival increasing the closer they were to the rear of the aircraft.

Though an analysis of a single crash is hardly decisive, the findings support a study by Popular Mechanics, carried out in 2007. The magazine analysed all crashes after 1971 and found that rear seats (behind the wing’s trailing edge) were safest, with survival rates of 69 per cent as opposed to 56 per cent over the wing and 49 per cent at the front.

The world’s two biggest aircraft manufacturers, however, insist that no conclusive evidence is available.

“One seat is as safe as another,” said a spokesman for Boeing. “Especially if you stay buckled up.” That is an important point. The Channel 4 study in Mexico also saw three dummies placed in the same row, but in different positions: one in the brace position and wearing a seatbelt, one buckled up but sat normally, and one sat normally minus the belt. The unfastened traveller would have been the only one to perish, experts claimed.

This evacuation issue is also key. As outlined above, the majority of plane crashes are survivable. So surely a seat close to an exit would be safest? This theory is supported by a University of Greenwich study, commissioned by the CAA. Researchers checked the accounts of 2,000 survivors in 105 accidents around the world. Those sat more than six rows from an exit were found to be far less likely to survive, though the difference between window and aisle seat was “marginal”.

Manufacturers claims all seats are equally safe - but studies suggest otherwise Credit: Kurganov Aleksandr +79033161409/Aleksandr Kurganov

Brace

Like the safest seats, this is a contentious area. Internet conspiracy theorists claim the recommended brace positions (which themselves have varied over the years) are those guaranteed to break your neck and back most successfully – a deliberate ploy, they claim, to make your death as quick and painless as possible and reduce insurance costs.

Others – less ludicrously – point out that one of the two recommended brace positions is impossible for anyone in an economy seat, where the space in front of you is simply insufficient to adopt the suggested position. It's worth noting that some think the recommended brace positions don't make much sense, and that you should sit up straight and push against the seat in front of you.

In any event, you are trying to do three basic things by bracing. Get your torso as low as possible to reduce the jackknife effect at impact; stop yourself from flying forward and hitting the seat or other parts of the aircraft interior; and preventing injury to your legs and ankles that will hinder your escape from the aircraft.

Ignore the conspiracy theorists and brace Credit: ALAMY

Protection

That last point is pertinent: after the M1 Kegworth crash of 1989 (when 79 of the 126 people on board survived), many victims and survivors were found to have legs broken below the knee, the result of their legs flying into, or being forced against the seat structure in front of them.

Therefore hold your legs and/or place feet flat on the floor, preferably farther back than your knees, and place hand luggage under the seat in front of you to act as a cushion or check.

If you can, add additional protection for your head – a pillow, say. Be sure that you have removed any dentures, pencils or other sharp objects from around your person. Also be sure to hold the brace position until the plane has come to a standstill – often there will be additional impacts after the initial one.

Seat belts

One of the strangest findings of research into crashes and passenger behaviour is that over and over again people struggled with what you'd imagine would be the easiest of tasks – undoing their seat belts. The reason is that in times of stress people revert to learned, normal behaviour and when it comes to seat belts normal and instinctive means a car seat belt. Following a crash, investigators found that many people scrabbled around to find the push-button release on their belts, as this is the release with which they were most familiar. Aircraft seat belts unbuckle.

As for the belt itself, pull it as tight as possible. For every inch of slack you are increasing the potential g-forces to which you'll be subjected.

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Negative panic

After a crash, speed is of the essence, as is calm. But a frequent stress reaction is what is known as “negative panic”, whereby people remain seated and immobile, as if in a trance, stunned by events. The same can apply to aircraft crew, who, despite their rigorous training, may also be stunned and fail to react.

One of the keys to survival can be to listen to, and follow crews' instructions, but if they or your immediate neighbours appear to be in a trance, then you have to make your own moves and decisions. In a similar vein, stunned passengers were often found to have remained seated waiting for instructions that, for whatever reason, didn't come. Move.

Smoke inhalation

Fire is a main cause of death in most survivable crashes, but smoke is worse. Even a few breaths that draw in smoke can result in loss of consciousness. If possible wet a handkerchief, or other piece of material – the seat back headrest, for example – to cover your nose and mouth. If no water is available, use urine. This is a matter of life and death – it's no time to be fastidious.

Low to the ground

In a smoke-filled plane, some sources suggest you keep low to the floor as there's likely to be less smoke at floor level. Wrong. The chances are you'll simply be trampled, crushed or suffocated under luggage, falling bodies and the rush of other passengers. Keep your head down, mouth and nose covered, but stay on two feet. Climb over seat backs if gangways are blocked.

Hands-free

People do the most remarkable things after crashes, one of the strangest of which is trying to retrieve some, or all of their possessions. For goodness' sake – leave them. You don't have time, the possessions will slow you (and others) down, and you will need both hands free, whether it's to remove obstacles, hold a pad over your nose and mouth or fight off the flailing fists of others.

This said, don't push (you won't get through any faster) or lash out yourself – you'll slow everything and everyone down and invite retaliation: and in a stressful fight-and-flight situation such as a crash, people find extraordinary strength – you could be knocked out or otherwise injured.

Move fast

The "golden period" for escape lasts only up to about two minutes. Listen to flight attendants, get to an exit fast, check quickly that it is viable, inside and out, then get out and move as far from the plane as fast as possible. And whether you stop to help others? Well, that is up to you, and to the reserves of courage and fellow feeling you may or may not have. Who knows what we will do in extremis?