The Nation : Airline Seats Too Close, Coroner Agrees

The head of a forensic team who did autopsies on all 111 victims killed in a United Airlines plane crash agrees with flight attendants who said that airliner seat rows need to be farther apart. Iowa State Medical Examiner Dr. Thomas Bennett also said in Des Moines that about half of those killed in the July 19 crash of a DC-10 at Sioux City died from smoke inhalation and the rest from head, neck and chest injuries. During a Friday news conference in Chicago, flight attendant Susan White said many of the men on the plane had trouble assuming the “brace position”--doubling over and grabbing their ankles in preparation for the emergency landing. White said she believed the seats were too close.