The myth about the brace position being designed to kill people came from the fact that airlines used to lose less money per death than they lost per injury.
(Mythbusters covered it some years ago)
The same article that Sunny John used to describe the UK's brace position goes on to describe the UK's brace position in great detail.
I won't bore you with it, but if you want to read it, it is on wiki. . Suffice it to say that the UK's post-Kegworth brace position described in that article is NOTHING like the brace position pictured in the OP's attachments.
And, for those who want to display their obviously much greater expertise, I did research this quite carefully before I talked to the nice people at the Belgrano.
Last edited by Ancient Observer; 10th Jul 2013 at 11:20.