I have always wondered how many of those killed would have survived the impact if they had been sitting in rearward facing seats. Having spent a couple of thousand hours flying facing aft, both as pax in RAF passenger aircraft which all had rearward facing seats, and down the back of a Victor, I have never felt the slightest discomfort flying that way. Indeed for several years after I left the service, flying facing forward as a passenger seemed distinctly odd to me. I am 99% certain that there is no chance that civil airlines will ever adopt rear facing seats as a policy - it would be a brave maker/operator to be the first to make such a decision, but I think it's a pity. I remember a book on aircraft crashes called "It Doesn't Matter Where You Sit", and that is probably true for the majority of accidents, but there will always be some, like this one, where the direction you are facing could mean the difference between life and death.