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They say that the seats in the back are more safe, presumably because fewer people die in them, but are not the seats in the back usually only filled if the plane is full? The plane would have to be somewhat full in order for someone in the back of the plane to die in a crash. I am not saying that their data is completely wrong, as I am not sure what their methodology was, but it is at least suspect.

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My anecdotal evidence from looking at what seats are occupied when picking my seat does not back up that idea at all. Passenger density tends to drop slightly towards the back of the plane, but it's rare to have a plane that's more than half full that has any completely empty rows.

Even if the back of the airplane tended to be empty, the article makes it quite clear that they looked at deaths per occupied seat, not deaths per seat overall.

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