Originally Posted by
PAXboy
As I recall, th experiments with rear facing seats were the first couple of rows. I was on a Trident (don't know which version) from LHR~HAM in the mid-70s and was asked to fill out a questionnaire on the read facing seats. They were fine and, as we know, much safer. Naturally, humans like to face forward and, naturally,
PR departments don't like to talk about prangs - so we don't have rear facing seats.
An urban legend. Boeing did a very detailed study of this back in the 1970s which concluded that forward-facing seats gave somewhat more safety in a hard deceleration. Principal reason is all the flying debris that throws forwards in such an event, baggage, detached panels, catering carts and their contents, etc, even passengers, which conventional seating gives significant protection from, whereas with rear-facing someone is much more likely to get it all smack in the face. These injuries outweighed any from being thrown against the seat immediately ahead.
I wonder if the RAF rearward-facing mob have an equally researched analysis, rather than some Group Captain thought it looked like a good idea.