Also to come out of the Kegworth crash was that many people survived the crash, but were killed in a subsequent fire, or from loff of blood.
The reason was that when sitting in a forward facing seat, when the aircraft and the seat come to an abrupt stop, unless your legs are in the correct brace possition, your legs fly forward. Your shin bone is then neatly broken just below the knee on the lower structure of the seat in front of you.
So even if you are not knocked out due to head injury, you are unable to leave your seat due to one or more broken legs!
The accident report from Kegworth reccomended an improved brace possition, where you tuck your legs as far back under your seat as possible. When you stop, the motion of your body going forward, pushes your legs slightly down, thus preventing them flying forward, and impacting the seat in front of you.
Many airlines have changed the brace possition in the flight safety cards to reflect this, but how many pax have noted this?
It may just save your life!
Having flown in the flight test area for many years, it always shocks me some of the information in the seat back cards, lack of pax attention to pre flight briefs. When flying down the back, I was always glad we had rear facing seats in al our "heavy" aircraft.
Questions for you to think about,
when you drive a car in Europe, people expect a 3 point harness, airbags etc etc. When flying, that single lap strap is all you relie on to hold you for much higher decelleration forces. Thus causing pelvic injury? How many people choose to face the rear when in a train? Why did the military (not known for spending needless money) insist on rear facing seats for the VC10? So how much does the aviation industry put into your survival as opposed to proffit?