Is bracing for impact really helpful in an airline crash?
Or is it just meant to make us feel like we're doing something?
- By Rebecca Maksel
- AirSpaceMag.com, August 26, 2009
AmSafe's commercial aviation airbag
AmSafe Aviation
Spending weeks (if not months) reading about Chesley “Sully” Sullenberger’s heroic landing of US Airways Flight 1549 in the Hudson River last January led the Air & Space copy chief to wonder: “When an airplane is about to make a bad landing and the pilot tells passengers ‘Brace for impact,’ does that instruction really help? Could it actually hurt? Is it just a placebo to make the passengers feel like they’re doing something?”
The question has circulated on the Internet for several years in the form of an urban legend; the ever-helpful web site Snopes.com lists this version, which made the rounds in 1997: “A coworker mentioned [that the reason passengers are told to] stick their head between their knees, was so that in the event of a serious crash…the rapid deceleration would snap everyone’s neck and avoid pain and suffering.”
Later versions of the rumor suggested that the posture would make collecting dental records a cinch, and also would make passenger’s remains “easier to piece together.” An even more cynical version was featured on the Discovery Channel show “Mythbusters” in 2005, when hosts Adam Savage and Jamie Hyneman debunked the following hypothesis: “The brace position was actually designed by the airline industry to kill people rather than save them during an airplane crash in order to save money by paying off wrongful death suits rather than continuous injury compensations.”
Some people will believe anything.
The FAA’s Air Carrier Operations Bulletin No. 1-94-17, published in 1994, notes (somewhat unrealistically, given the suddenness of most emergencies): “In order to establish a best brace-for-impact position for each person, it would be necessary to know the size and physical limitations of the individual, the seating configuration, the type of emergency, and many other factors.”
More useful are the bulletin’s reasons why passengers should brace for impact: Doing so reduces flailing and minimizes the effects of secondary impact. In aircraft with seats spaced relatively far apart, a passenger should rest her head and chest against her legs while grasping her ankles. Her head should be face down in her lap, not turned to one side. (In aircraft with very close seating, a passenger should position his head and arms against the seat in front of him.)
This opinion was endorsed in a 1998 study published in Aviation Space and Environmental Medicine analyzing the crash of a Boeing 737 at Kegworth, near Nottingham, England in 1989. One-third of the passengers died in the crash; the injuries of the survivors included a significant number of pelvic and lower limb injuries. The study suggested that the traditional brace-for-impact position (which did not include a passenger using the seat in front of her as a brace) could be modified to help reduce these types of injuries.
The FAA bulletin concludes with this bit of advice: “In the case of a planned emergency landing, the passengers should be briefed on the above information. In the case of an unplanned emergency, the flight attendants may only have enough time to give a short command such as ‘lean over’ or ‘grab your ankles.’ Experience has shown that in an attempt to take a brace position of some sort, the passengers will end up in a position which could result in less injury than if no attempt had been made at all.” (Scroll to the end of this FAA publication to see diagrams of the brace position.)
All of this may soon be beside the point: According to a recent New York Times story, “Starting this fall, all new airplanes will be required to have seats that will stay in place when subjected to stresses up to 16 times the force of gravity. And, in a safety measure borrowed from automobiles, some seats will be equipped with air bags.” The air bags shown here, built into passenger seatbelts by a company called AmSafe, deploy using a shock meter system (as do car air bags), and won’t inflate during the routine side-to-side or up-and-down movements typically produced during turbulence. (See videos of the air bags being tested here.)
They’re already found on more than 30 carriers, says AmSafe’s Carlotta Soares, including U.S. Airways, Virgin Atlantic, JAL, and Cathay Pacific.
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Comments (10)
Posture seems to make no sense, as you would fly head first into anything the second the seat let go. Why would you not brace your legs up against the seat in front of you? With airlines shortening the pitch of the seats, just about everyone has a seat right in front of them. You could wrap your arms around your legs if flailing arms was an issue.
Never had the experience but my thought would be to brace with the legs up so could perhaps alter your fate as you could see what was happening.
Posted by art slesinger on September 17,2009 | 10:49 PM
Some small aircraft are installing seatbelts with built-in air-bags. The advantage of this is the bag deploys away from you - instead of smashing your face as a bag in the seatback would.
Posted by nb on September 21,2009 | 04:58 PM
If seatbelts with built-in airbags are already installed on some 30+ carriers then how come FAA has not evaluated their efficacy and made them mandatory on all passenger carrying airplanes if they work ? Or is it once again a question of $$$ vis a vis lives of passengers ?
Posted by Ashok Rajadhyaksha - Mumbai (India) on October 2,2009 | 01:04 PM
Realistically will air bags really help? It seems to me that the impact would be so severe that if the air bags did their job, it's seems more likely that you will get hit with flying objects (from the over head compartments).
Mike Marlton NJ
Posted by Mike on November 10,2009 | 03:41 PM
Just spent 8 hrs on an A340 Airbus, with the airbag belts\
PLEASE spare me the pain ,.... the air bag belt is very thick, and truly a fine way to add to the misery of a long flight !
I' m 6ft 2 in, 42 in waist ... not exactly oversize
The point is I could BARELY squeeze into the seat .. and had to get up quite often to restore circulation ..
Really , after millions of air miles.. just give me the regular belt and I'll take my chances !
Posted by oscar gallo on April 5,2010 | 07:00 AM
The idea behind "brace for impact" is to pre-position your body against whatever you will hit during the crash impact ... before you hit it! This will allow you to "ride down" the crash at the much lower primary deceleration level generated in a survivable crash, and avoid the much greater deceleration that would be experienced as you catch up with the already decelerated aircraft ("the secondary impact") that would occur when you would impact the aircraft interior. Injuries will be less because the deceleration will be less.
Airbags in safety belts or bulkheads are likely to be installed only in select seats in newly certified aircraft that cannot otherwise meet the required injury reduction requirement.
Posted by Richard Chandler on April 10,2010 | 01:41 PM
Why not just turn the seats around and face the rear of the aircraft? Since the impact of deceleration would be toward the front of the aircraft the back of the seat would be most helpful in decreasing secondary impact injury.
Posted by Robert Dahl on May 22,2012 | 08:10 AM
The reason why you can not have your legs up against you on the place in brace position is because you wont have any stance, plus you need to be low down with your hands on top of each other and dont interlock your fingers. All passenger seats must be facing the flight deck cause the brace position would be safer than facing the cock pit cause you would have keep your head firmly back and keep strength in your arms for the support going down. When the plane comes to a complete stop which then would mean you would go forward and you will proberly get whiplash. It is safer to face the flight deck cause if you do come to a complete stop you have support then for your neck.
Posted by Jade Louise on October 23,2012 | 04:33 PM
I thought that brace was an icing on top of the cake, just an additional precaution that makes more noise than is effective, and is mostly there to reassure the passengers by giving them the illusion of having a role in their survival.
After listening the testimony of a KAL 801 survivor, I started believing that it does make a difference. You want to have at least one working leg after the crash, so that you can escape the wreckage, and your position at impact can have an influence on that.
Posted by Rolfen on February 4,2013 | 09:34 AM
hi your full instruction is super.........
Posted by hasen on February 5,2013 | 06:29 AM