In 2012, scientists did a weird thing. But it was a good thing.

They intentionally flew a Boeing 737 aircraft into the Mexican desert to learn how people survive plane crashes.

The results they ended up with revealed some pretty surprising information.

One of the biggest takeaways was that, depending on where you sit in the plane, your chances of survival can vary wildly. Sit in first class, your chances don't look so hot. Sit behind a wing or in the back — who knows? You might just walk away with a headache.

Sit in first class, your chances don't look so hot. Sit behind a wing or in the back — who knows? You might just walk away with a headache.

We should clarify up top that airplanes are orders of magnitude safer than most other forms of transportation. The chances of dying in a car accident are roughly one in 5,000. Plane crashes, meanwhile, are closer to one in 11 million.

These things are safe.

But as the researchers in 2012 found, the way airplanes crash can lead to certain parts of their anatomy absorbing more impact than others. The greatest force hits the cockpit, which tears away from the cabin almost immediately. As the plane's momentum carries it further still, those in first class risk serious injury — from whiplash, high-speed impact, and the extreme pressure put on vulnerable joints.

Seat 7A, for example, was found 500 feet from the crash site.

Moving toward the back of the plane, death isn't so certain. The crash-test dummies rigged toward the middle of the plane, near the exit rows, only seemed to sustain minor head injuries. The dummy that wasn't wearing its seatbelt felt even greater damage from being jostled around.

Overall, however, the team found the safest place was far and away the back of the plane. It was the furthest from the moment of impact, but still maintained access to the exit rows for quick escape.

Other data backs up that finding.

An analysis conducted by TIME magazine last year concluded the safest places to sit are in the middle seats toward the back of the plane. Data showed people in those seats died 28% of the time, while people further up in the plane died closer to 40% of the time.

Both TIME and the 2012 scientists concede that the circumstance of the crash are important. A plane that goes into a tailspin won't have the same outcome as one that takes a nosedive, so the back of the plane isn't always the safest.

But if you're feeling anxious about that flight coming up, you might feel better moving your seat a little closer to the rear of the plane. Sure, you'll be next to the bathroom, but at least you're hedging your bets for the sake of survival.

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NOW WATCH: The wings of this Airbus plane can bend way more than you thought possible

After getting on a dozen or so flights this past summer, I noticed every single plane I embarked had ashtrays in the bathroom — despite there being "No Smoking" signs posted everywhere. So we asked a flight attendant why airplanes still have ashtrays in the bathroom.

Produced by Will Wei

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First class is great.

You board first, get served drinks first, and in the event of disaster, potentially die first.

Wait, what?

Unfortunately for those travelers who like to spend a little extra on their seats, the best available research all points toward first-class passengers facing the greatest risk of death in any part of the airplane's cabin in the (incredibly unlikely) event of a crash landing.

The evidence to back up this grisly and cosmically unfair outcome is pretty sizable.

In 2012, scientists and engineers intentionally crash-landed an entire Boeing 737— they literally destroyed the thing on purpose — to see how well the plane kept its passengers safe.

Upon inspection, the researchers found seats in the middle of the cabin and toward the back of the plane seemed to fare the best. Grease paint strewn around the cabin revealed the crash-test dummies had been thrown around quite a bit. Many had their ankles broken from the weight of their torsos falling onto their bent legs.

Fortunately, those near the exit rows probably would have made it out OK, as would the more mobile passengers toward the rear of the plane.

Those up front, however, faced a far darker outcome. 

For starters, the cockpit got fully ripped off from the rest of the cabin. And the first class seats behind them got so mangled in the wreckage that one seat — seat 7A — got tossed more than 500 feet from the crash site.

The crash-landing experiment isn't the only data to suggest first class comes with serious risks. In June of last year, TIME magazine discovered first-class passengers actually faced a 38% fatality risk in the event of a crash, while those in the far back faced a 28% risk.

There's some solace: crashes are highly unlikely. The most dangerous parts of any flight— already an ultra-safe way to travel — are during takeoff and landing. Unexpected problems in-flight are a rarity. 

That doesn't stop the perennially anxious from making flying decisions based on irrational fears. 

If you're one of those people — the kind to sit behind the wing because it's marginally safer during catastrophe — consider avoiding first class the next time you fly.

You'll save your money and your sanity. 

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NOW WATCH: Scientists have developed a bomb-proof lining for airplanes

The Boeing 737 Max had its maiden flight on January 29th. The plane flew for 2.5 hours from Boeing's factory in Renton, Washington to Boeing Field outside Seattle. And those weird wingtips? They're designed to reduce fuel consumption by 1.8%.

Produced by Matt Stuart. Reporting by Benjamin Zhang. Video courtesy of Boeing.

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Rapid ascent and descents on airplanes cause our ears to "pop." But, why do our ears do that in the first place?

And why does the lack of that relieving "pop" cause the most annoying pain in our middle ear?

We brought in William H. Shapiro, an audiologist and a clinical associate professor from NYU Langone, to tell us just that.

Produced by Corey Protin. Camera by Grace Raver. 

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Taxpayers fork over $206,337 every hour the world's most famous plane is in flight, according to a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) letter obtained by the nonprofit Judicial Watch.

The FY15 cost per flying hour for Air Force One (VC-25A) includes "fuel, flight consumables, depot level repairables, aircraft overhaul, and engine overhaul," according to the letter from the Department of the Air Force Headquarters Air Mobility Command to Judicial Watch.

According to the National Taxpayer Union Foundation, President Barack Obama has traveled internationally more than any other president, and he has done it on the "most expensive-to-operate Air Force One to date." 

The aging Air Force One and it's twin decoy will be replaced with two Boeing's 747-8 and are expected to be operational in 2020.

Here are some of President Obama's taxpayer funded trips:

• Obama's October 2015Columbus Day fundraising trip to San Diego, California, cost $969,783.90
• Obama’s June 20, 2015, golf outing to Palm Springs cost taxpayers $2,187,172.20
• Obama's July 18, 2015, trip to New York City with his daughters cost $309,505.50
• Obama's August 7, 2015, family trip to Martha's Vineyard cost $619,011
• Obama's Dec 19, 2014-January 24, 2015 Christmas vacation to Honolulu cost $3,672,798
• Obama's June 17-19, 2013, trip to Belfast, Ireland, including a Dublin sightseeing side trip by Michelle Obama, her daughters, and her entourage, cost $7,921,638.66

According to The Los Angeles Times, in May 2015, Obama became the fourth president to have visited all 50 states.

The three-leveled "flying Oval Office" has 4,000 square feet of interior floor space that boasts a conference room, a dining room, private quarters for the president, offices for senior staff members, a medical operating room (a doctor flies on every flight), a press area, two food-preparation galleys that can provide 100 meals, and multifrequency radios for air-to-air and air-to-ground communication, according to the aircraft manufacturer Boeing.

Air Force One also comes with at least 26 crew members.

According to the White House, the retrofitted Boeing 747 can fly 6,205 miles from Washington, D.C., to Baghdad without stopping for fuel.

The plane can also be refueled while in flight in case of an emergency, The Washington Post reports.

SEE ALSO: There is simply no other plane in the world like Air Force One

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Few pilots can claim to be as talented as the acrobatic aces flying in the US Blue Angels and UK Red Arrows display teams. 

Both teams perform choreographed and synchronized displays at incredible break-neck speeds. The teams update their performances every year, according to How It Works Annual Volume 6, and the displays can last up to 30 minutes. 

Although the individual skills and stunts of each pilot is admirable, what sets the pilots of the Blue Angels and Red Arrows apart is their ability to work as a synchronized team.

The teams, consisting of 6 and 9 planes respectively, must be able to effectively fly and perform tricks while maintain perfect distance from their fellow pilots. How It Works notes that aircraft during the displays can fly as close as six feet from each other.

Below are some of the teams' most amazing tricks explained.

SEE ALSO: The evolution of US Army uniforms over the last 240 years

Vixen Break

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Rollbacks

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Brian Kelly is known as "The Points Guy," and is famous for using frequent flier miles and credit card rewards to travel all over the world. Recently, he flew from New York to Accra, Ghana, for only $5.60. 

Check out the full episode below:

Story and editing by Jeremy Dreyfuss

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In case you missed it, Ok Go's new music video is literally out of this world. Ok, not literally, but it was shot in "zero gravity."

The pop band, known for its ambitious music videos, filmed its latest single "Upside Down and Inside Out" in a Russian reduced-gravity plane, which flies in a way that produces weightlessness, Rolling Stone reported. To prepare for the feat, the band trained for three weeks at ROSCOSMOS, Russia's equivalent of NASA.

"What you are about to see is real. We shot this in zero gravity, in an actual plane, in the sky. There are no wires or green screen," the video's opening reads. 

What it's like to fly in 'reduced gravity'

Several years ago, I had the chance to fly in a reduced gravity plane myself, as part of NASA's Microgravity University, a program where teams of college students design experiments and fly them aboard a special airplane nicknamed the "vomit comet."

And it's not called that for nothing — the human body doesn't always take kindly to floating around, and many people (not me, thankfully) get violently sick. Luckily, they give you anti-nausea drugs, and an air sickness bag, just in case.

In fact, Ok GO lead singer and guitarist Damian Kulash told Business Insider that making a video is reduced gravity is "not so promising on the first flight simply because it's so hard to do anything. In one flight, what you learn is it makes you nauseous, and it's really hard to control yourself."

The plane flies in arcs called parabolas, and since you and the plane are falling at the same rate, you don't feel like you're experiencing gravity. NASA refers to these flights as "reduced" or "micro" gravity, because you experience a mix of partial Gs at the top and bottom of each parabola known as dirty air.

On my flight, we did about 25 parabolas, and each one gives you only about 20 to 30 seconds of weightlessness. But Ok Go's 3-minute video appears to be one continuous take, thanks to some clever editing.

We were technically doing the zero-G flights to test our experiment — a system for manipulating droplets of fluid in zero G using sound waves — but I managed to get in a bit of play time. Still, 30 seconds in zero-G goes by surprisingly fast. Before you know it, the pilot is throttling back the plane to pull out of the dive, and you get the delightful experience of pulling two "Gs."

In Ok Go's video, the band members seem to effortlessly tumble about the plane, doing flips, aerial push ups, and other forms of synchronized acrobatics.

Two flight attendants even appear to get in on the fun:

From there, things just get even more absurd:

You can watch the full video below:

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Air Force One is the most prestigious aircraft in the US, and is charged with safely carrying the president around the country and the world (at a significant cost). These are the unique features that make this mammoth of the sky the preferred travel option for the president. 

Produced by Justin Gmoser. Original reporting by Amanda Macias. 

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Don't you just hate long flights? Imaginactive, a non-profit technology group, has introduced jet designs that might revolutionize future air travel. These jets might bring back commercial supersonic speed travel and let passengers travel around the globe faster than anyone could have imagined. 

Produced by Gene Kim

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UK Airline easyJet is preparing for the future. 

That was clear enough when it created a new line of uniforms decked out with cameras and sensors to better aid easyJet employees.

But now the airline is taking a bold step by building airplanes capable of running, at least in part, on hydrogen. The plane is part of easyJet's goal to lower its emissions by 7% over the next five years.

Using hydrogen-fuel cells as a power source is not a new idea. In fact, several automakers are currently investing in the technology, and Toyota has already released the first hydrogen-powered car in the United States.

But easyJet is proposing the first ever plane to draw power from a hydrogen fuel cell. To be clear, the planes wouldn't fly on hydrogen power, but would use it while driving on the ground.

That doesn't sound like a huge deal, but the airline predicts equipping planes with hydrogen fuel cells will save 50,000 tonnes of fuel while reducing toxic emissions.

How it works

The fuel-cell stack generates power for the engine by fusing pressurized hydrogen stored in a tank with oxygen from the air. During this process, electricity is created that is used to power the motor for when the plane is driving on the ground.

The only byproduct of hydrogen fuel cells is water, which easyJet says they will use to refill the plane's water supply.

In addition to drawing power from the hydrogen fuel cell, the plane will store the kinetic energy from braking while landing. That energy will be used to power batteries in the plane to keep it mobile.

"This would enable the aircraft to utilize clean hydrogen power instead of using fixed ground power or engine power whilst the aircraft is taxiing," Andy Cockburn, a spokesperson for easyJet, told Tech Insider.

This is a similar system to hydrogen-powered cars, which are also equipped with batteries to aid in higher performance demands like acceleration.

On average, easyJet aircrafts accrue 4 million miles a year just from taxiing — that's akin to traveling to the moon and back eight times, the airline wrote in a press release.

The future

The airline is currently working on equipping a truck with the hydrogen fuel-cell container to test the system in the coming months, Cockburn said.

There's no word yet on when we can expect to see the planes in action, but Cockburn notes that the technology will be used on international and domestic flights.

Getting a proof of concept together could take as long as three to five years, with mainstream adoption taking as much as 15 years, Ian Davies, easyJet's head of engineering, told CNN.

The planes could also draw power from the hydrogen fuel cell while flying in the future.

"We see no reason why it cannot be used in flight," Cockburn told Tech Insider. "We are leading the way with this and see no reason why we cannot develop this into a fully certified technology."

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NOW WATCH: This airline has created the world’s first hybrid plane

Remember the days when food and drink was free on seemingly every flight? And checked luggage was included as standard?

Well, those days might be gone, but there are still some decent perks to be had, if you know where to look. Here’s a selection of our favorites.

SEE ALSO: 20 tricks you can use to score a cheap flight

Free Champagne on Air France

The French take their food and drink seriously, that much we know. But did you know that Air France serves free Champagne to all passengers (regardless of cabin type) on its long-haul flights? That works out at roughly a million bottles of bubbly every year. Not just any old rubbish either – last year the airline signed up Paolo Basso, the man named World’s Best Sommelier 2013, to help choose its wine.

Free Istanbul tours from Turkish Airlines

If you’ve ever spent more than an hour so waiting for a connecting flight, you’ll already know this: time passes more slowly in airports than anywhere else on earth. It’s science or something. So hats off to Turkish Airlines, who’ve come up with a nifty way round this problem for anyone transiting Istanbul – free city tours for anyone with a stopover of 7-10 hours. No advance booking is required, just a valid ticket and sufficient amount of time to complete the tour.

Free access to the fastest Internet in the skies

Not so very long ago, the idea of using the internet on a plane seemed vaguely preposterous. How times have changed. Loads of airlines now have Wi-Fi in place, but if you’re flying within the US, get yourself on board a JetBlue plane to see how it’s really done. The airline’s Fly-Fi service is free and, if you have an Amazon Prime account, you can even stream movies and TV shows.

Emirates Airlines offers one of the most luxurious travel experiences out there.

The airline's A380 is a double-decker jumbo jet that not only offers the largest TV screens of any airline, but also a full-service bar.

Story by Aly Weisman and editing by A.C. Fowler

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For the new Airbus A350 XWB, the French aircraft manufacturer put the plane under extreme stress tests, showing how when extreme pressure is exerted onto the wings they bend an enormous amount — 17 whole feet in fact.

This should make you feel better about turbulence.

Story by Jacob Shamsian and editing by Kristen Griffin

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A total solar eclipse occurred on March 8, 2016, and select passengers on an Alaska Air flight got an incredible front row view of the phenomenon.

Produced by Will Wei. Video courtesy of Mike Kentrianakis/American Astronomical Society and Alaska Airlines.

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A South African teenager vacationing in Mozambique may have found part of a wing from missing Malaysia Airlines Flight 370, which his family dismissed as "rubbish" and his mother nearly threw away, he said Friday.

On Dec. 30, Liam Lotter was strolling on a beach in southern Mozambique, near the resort town of Xai Xai, when he spotted a gray piece of debris washed up on the sand, he recalled.

It had rivet holes along the edge and the number 676EB stamped on it, convincing him he had found a piece of an aircraft.

So he dragged the piece back to his family's vacation home.

"It was so waterlogged at that time, it was quite heavy. I struggled to pick it up," he told The Associated Press in a telephone interview. The curved piece of debris is about 3.3 feet (one meter) long, and about half that length wide, his father Casper Lotter said.

His parents dismissed it as a "piece of rubbish" that was probably debris from a boat, with his uncle making fun of him for dragging it around, but the 18-year-old insisted on bringing it back to South Africa to research the fragment.

"He was adamant he wanted to bring it home because it had a number on it," said Casper Lotter, adding that his son is not an aviation enthusiast but was simply drawn to the piece of debris.

"It just grabbed him for some weird reason," the father said in a telephone interview with The Associated Press.

Back home in Wartburg in KwaZulu-Natal province, the piece was stored with the family's angling gear and almost forgotten as Lotter focused on his final year in high school. His mother even tried to throw it out, he said.

The Malaysia Airlines Boeing 777 jet vanished with 239 people on board while flying from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing on March 8, 2014.

It was only when Lotter read about another piece of possible debris from the missing airliner also found in Mozambique, about 186 miles (300 kilometers) from where he had made his discovery, that he resumed his probe.

"I was very shocked — Mozambique, similar color, similar area," the teen said of the piece discovered by an American man. "He described it similarly to what I'm looking at right now."

Last week, Lotter's mother Candace contacted Australian aviation authorities and they said the number on the part indicates it may belong to a Boeing 777, according to Casper Lotter. Australian authorities contacted South African counterparts to have the part examined by experts.

The honeycomb structure indicates it is either the leading edge of a wing, or a horizontal stabilizer

"We have arranged for collection of the part, which will be sent to Australia as they are the ones appointed by Malaysia to identify parts found," Kabelo Ledwaba, spokesman South African Civil Aviation Authority, wrote in a text message to the AP.

Last month, Blaine Gibson, a Seattle lawyer and part-time adventurer, found what could be a piece of tail section from the missing Malaysian airlines flight. The piece Gibson found had "NO STEP" written on it.

The 58-year-old's search for the missing jet has taken him to beaches in the Maldives, Mauritius, Cambodia, Myanmar and the French island of Reunion, he told The Associated Press. Gibson also travelled to Malaysia to attend a commemorative ceremony held on Sunday by the families of passengers on board the airliner.

The South African teenager hopes his find will help the grieving families, and inspire others who may have found fragments of the missing plane to hand them over to authorities.

He said he would be pleased "just for them to know that we're finding evidence, finding out how it happened, where it happened, just to give them some closure."

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Just like their sister branches on the ground, air forces around the world constantly seek to change and improve the camouflages they use.

And like all other examples of camouflage, aircraft patterns vary widely between countries, aircraft, historical period, and the location the aircraft was being deployed to.

Below we have listed some of our favorite examples of unique and varied aircraft camo patterns.

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A Russian SU-27 Flanker aircraft banks away with an RAF Typhoon in the background. RAF Typhoons were scrambled on June 14, 2014, to intercept multiple Russian aircraft as part of NATO's ongoing mission to police Baltic airspace.

A Russian Su-35 Super Flanker soars through the clouds.

Two RF-4Es of the Japan Air Self-Defense Force patrol above Japan.

Boston Globe columnist Dante Ramos tweeted a photo he took on a flight on Monday evening of a young woman — we're guessing she's a millennial — with her ponytail hanging over the back of the seat, blocking another passenger's in-flight entertainment system while she played a game on her smartphone.

Ramos has a great recap of the story at the Boston Globe.

It's just a great reminder that you should keep your belongings — and your hair — in your own personal space while in flight.

At the time of this publication, Ramos' tweet has been retweeted more than 8,200 times.

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NOW WATCH: Here's how they paint commercial airplanes

Alphabet had to reimburse its executive chairman $396,000 for flying in his private planes, according to an updated 10-K filing on Tuesday.

Eric Schmidt, Google's former CEO, "owns 100% of one aircraft and 33% of another aircraft, both of which are used by Eric and our other executive officers from time to time for business trips," the filing states.

As a result, the board of directors approved a reimbursement rate of $7,500 an hour for use of the plane. The $396,000 payment for 2015 meant that Alphabet executives spent approximately 52 hours on Schmidt's planes.

Luckily for Alphabet, that's less than what it had to shell out in 2014.

Last year, Google had to pay Schmidt $672,400 just to fly guests to one conference. In previous years, the company paid $61,706 in airplane reimbursements in 2013. The year before, his plane tab was a much-lower $14,018.

It's a lot of money, but the company insists that the former Google CEO isn't making a profit.

"Due to the fact that the $7,500 hourly rate paid for the use of these aircraft is less than the actual operational costs incurred by Eric as owner of these aircraft, Eric does not profit from the use of these aircraft," the filing states.

But Alphabet does make some money back thanks to owning the airport that Schmidt flies out of when his aircraft are not being used for business.

Alphabet became the operator of Moffett Federal Airfield in early 2015 and has since let Larry Page, Sergey Brin, Ram Shriram, and Schmidt use it for their private planes.

That does come with a charge, which the filing states is "non-preferential," to fly into it. In 2015, the company charged the four a total of $1,725,222 for using the airfield.

Alphabet did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

SEE ALSO: Google paid Eric Schmidt $672,400 to fly guests to one conference last year

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