Research by the Aviation Study Group at Linacre College, Oxford is investigating whether pre-flight safety instructions for airline passengers help save lives.

The Aviation Study Group will study whether more information should be given to passengers to improve their chances of surviving an emergency.

The group is already calling for safety innovations such as smoke hoods and rear-facing seats to be adopted by airlines.

Dr James Vant, said they were looking at whether the information was worthwhile. The group is calling for smoke hoods and rear-facing seats in aircraft. Disasters that kill all passengers are becoming rarer, according to the Civil Aviation Authority.

The proportion of passengers surviving air crashes has risen from ten per cent in the Sixties to more than 50 per cent, a record the CAA attributes to improvements in aircraft design, crew training and airport and rescue facilities.

From 1986 to 1995, UK airlines carried 570 million passengers and were involved in three fatal accidents and 56 passenger deaths, a rate of less than one death per ten million travellers. Flying remains 13 times safer than car travel.

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