enough to remain more or less in tact even if they hit the ground at more than 150mph.

An airline expert has already described the survival rate at Schiphol as a "tribute to Boeing and Airbus" and said that planes like the Boeing 737-800 that crashed "really are pretty much state-of-the-art airliners with every imaginable technical benefit the industry has come up with over the years".

Just as decades of research has gone into producing flying manuals, so has meticulous testing gone into developing passenger safety procedures. Yet those in-flight cards that can save lives regularly go unread, often because people believe that if the plane goes down, adopting the brace position (whatever that is) won't save them. Not true. Even if your plane is breaking up as it lands, or has smashed into the runway and is now engulfed in flames, there are things you can do to improve your chances of survival.

It

is estimated that up to 40 per cent of people who die in plane crashes would have lived if they had known what to do – and, more importantly, hadn't needed the flight attendants to repeat in fraught circumstances which way they should have been moving towards the emergency exit, and how to put on the life jacket before the plane exploded or sunk.

But airlines don't put every life saving tip on the safety card and there are other potentially lifesaving measures you can take.

Wear full length clothing, and sit within seven rows of an emergency exitFlight attendants, for example, are told to cover themselves head to toe with blankets if the plane has to make an emergency landing to minimise burning when fuel explodes. There aren't necessarily blankets for every passenger though – so when flying wear full-length clothing and consider a hooded top.

Do you have a seating preference, sir? You do. Statistics show that most survivors of fatal crashes were seated within seven rows of an emergency exit. Furthermore, aisle seats make it easier to get out of the plane in an emergency, and if you've kept your shoes on you'll be able to walk through a cabin strewn with debris without cutting yourself open.

Know what the brace position is – it is designed to keep you from breaking limbs or being knocked unconscious. Know also that in a rapid decompression you can lose consciousness in 10 seconds, so it really does make sense to put your oxygen mask on before helping others.

Meanwhile, remember that you are much more likely to die during the drive to the airport and the likelihood is that many of the 126 survivors are likely to be the ones who had read the safety cards, knew how to adopt the brace position and paid attention when trained lifesavers told them that "the emergency exits are here, here, here and here."