It won’t help you if your plane falls out of the sky and plummets 30,000 feet to the ground, but if you’re in an emergency landing or your plane just flops off the runway on takeoff, new airplane seats could save your life.

The seats, which will have to be retro-fitted to even some old commercial airliners after October 27th this year, are called 16G seats, and can withstand up to 16 times the force of gravity before being ripped from their shorings. Any plane introduced since 1988 already has them, but planes which were originally brought to market before that date will need them too. It’s a rather technical issue, to be sure, and its likely that any plane you travel in today is already so equipped.

More interesting are airplane airbags. These will be mounted into the lap belt and work just like those in cars, exploding into a safe cushion in case of a crash. They are calibrated not to deploy when the plane hits turbulence, though, so you shouldn’t have to worry about your tiny bottle of warm white wine being launched into your face.

The plebs won’t see the benefits, though. These belts will be fitted into first class seats, not cattle-class. This isn’t a way to kill off the lower castes, though, but a simple question of engineering: There just isn’t space top fit the belts into already tight seats, and the cushion of the seat in front provides protection anyway. The bags could make their way into seats in the emergency exit rows, the front seats and anywhere that a passenger may be flung into space. One more reason, apart from the legroom and lack of children, to choose the exit row.

We’re all for more safety in planes, though, which seem to have been dropping from the skies recently.

Product page [AmSafe]

New Planes Will Have Air Bags and Seats Less Apt to Rip Loose [NYT]

Photo: AmSafe