The Telegraph has just published an article entitled "Which is the safest seat on an aircraft?".
They refer to a documentary "The Crash" on the subject, where:
After hitting the ground, the front of the plane and the first 11 rows
of seats – usually reserved for first-class, business-class or
premium-economy passengers – were ripped off. A force of 12G was
recorded in this section of the aircraft. Further back, the force fell
to around 6G. Experts concluded that none of the plane’s first-class
passengers would have survived, but 78 per cent of the other
passengers would have, with the chance of survival increasing the
closer they were sitting to the rear of the aircraft.
They also talk about a Popular Mechanics study from 2007:
The magazine analysed all crashes since 1971 and found that those in
rear seats (behind the wing’s trailing edge) were safest – survival
rates were 69 per cent as opposed to 56 per cent over the wing and 49
per cent for those at the front of the plane.
Boeing and Airbus, however, very politically-correctly, state:
“One seat is as safe as another,” said a spokesman for Boeing. “Especially if you stay buckled up.”
and
“the safest aircraft is one that doesn’t crash and is well maintained”.
Conclusion
Flying is very safe. The odds of being killed on a single flight are 1 in 4.7 million, according to the website planecrashinfo.com.
But you might raise that figure slightly by sitting in economy class, with your seat belt fastened, by the window, within a few rows of an emergency exit.