OKLAHOMA CITY -- Imagine the scenario: Your airplane catches fire, smoke fills the cabin and you're plummeting toward Earth.

Although it sounds frightening, FAA investigators told flight attendants at the Mike Munroney Aeronautical Center in Oklahoma City that surviving is not a matter of luck -- it's a matter of how the situation is handled, reported KOCO-TV in Oklahoma City.

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FAA Offers 5 Tips On Surviving Plane Crash

During a recent FAA evacuation training session, attendants faced a simulated crash, which ended with theatrical smoke that was pumped into the aircraft. After smoke began to fill the cabin, the attendants were ordered to evacuate.

The best in the airline industry -- flight attendants clued into the plan -- nearly came to a standstill.

Jennifer Prochaska, a flight attendant with Miami Airlines, was one of the attendants riding along for two days of intensive instruction.

She said the training session was frightening even for a group of people who have seen just about everything in the skies.

"The girl that was behind me, she was going, 'Oh my gosh ... I can't see anything,'" Prochaska said. "It was like, 'So this is the way a passenger's really going to be.'"

Twenty seconds after the smoke started, attendants finally reached the exit. Getting out was difficult, but instructors told them to file in an orderly manner, jump out of the emergency exit and keep their feet up.

In the end, the class made the grade, and all walked away unharmed. Still, Prochaska was left wondering.

"What about the person that doesn't do (the exercise) every day or doesn't go through training?" she said.

Mac McLean, the FAA's investigator for cabin safety, said that's exactly why the agency holds its training sessions for airline personnel.

He said organization and planning are keys to escaping alive.

"Having a plan and executing that plan is the most important aspect," McLean said.

McLean shared his five-step survival plan with the workshop participants -- all of which focus on being prepared and staying calm in an emergency.

The first step, he said, is to count the rows between your seat and the exit when you first board the aircraft.

1. When you board the plane, count the rows between your seat and the exit. 2. Read the safety card located in the seatback in front of you. 3. Properly brace for landing. 4. "Stop, go and stay low." 5. Get away from crash site as soon as possible. - FAA Cabin Safety Expert Mac McLean

"If you know how many there are, and you can't see if the cabin fills up with smoke, then you feel your way along the seatbacks and know by counting how close you are back to that exit row," he said.

Mc Lean said passengers also need to read the card with safety instructions that is located inside the seatback pocket on every aircraft seat.

Even if the instructions are ingrained in your mind, Mclean said, a refresher course can't hurt.

"If you know what to do -- and know how to go about saving yourself -- well, then, you will be better able to do a lot better," he said.

The third step McLean offered in his checklist is to properly brace for landing.

"Don't sit back," he said. "The proper position is to cross your hands on the seat in front of you. Put your head against your hands and stay in that position as long as it takes to get to the ground."

McLean said FAA tests show that using the brace position reduces the distance your head travels in a crash, as well as the damage suffered.

Next, McLean recommended that passengers "stop, stay low and go." In other words, once the plane stops, you should move toward your exit in an orderly manner.

According to McLean, the fourth step needs to be executed quickly.

A recent FAA experimental video showed that 20 seconds into a simulated fuel fire, the seats decompose.

Thirty seconds later, poisonous fumes turn the hull into a gas chamber. Nearly a minute-and-a-half into the blaze, a flashover fire consumes anyone who is still on board.

Although passengers should move quickly, McLean said, cramming into the door all at once is not the strategy to use.

"The best that people can do is just be as orderly as the situation will allow and yet move as fast as they possibly can," he said.

The final step is to get away from the burning wreckage as soon as possible.

"It's going to become a very lethal environment, so get away as fast and as far as you can," McLean said.

As for belongings stored in the overhead compartment, McLean said that should be the least of a passenger's worries.

"That's not part of the plan," he said. "You will get them later if they are still to be gotten, and if not, just thank your lucky stars that you're off that airplane and you're one of the survivors."

After two days in class and experience in the flight simulator, Prochaska said that learning the survival skills would make a big difference for her and her colleagues.

"You know that's something that could save your life," she said.

McLean said that how you dress can also protect you.

Passengers should avoid T-shirts or shorts in favor of long-sleeved shirts and heavy pants, which will provide better insulation in the event of a fire.

As for shoes, he said, you should choose heavy ones instead of sandals to provide better protection against glass, metal and debris.

Jet safety is also being improved because of information learned from FAA tests. The agency is looking into fire-blocking materials to be used in airplane insulation, which would give passengers additional seconds to escape a fuel fire.

Surviving A Crash In Water

Many remember a frightening scene replayed around the world in 1996: A hijacked Ethiopian Airlines plane with 175 passengers and crew members ran out of fuel. The pilot is forced to "ditch," or land on water -- and 123 people were killed.

FAA investigators said they believe some aboard the flight were killed by the force of impact. But experts said others died because they didn't know how to escape.

Ditchings are rare. Only 143 happened from 1983 to 1999, and that figure includes smaller, private aircraft.

However, the FAA is trying to prepare flight attendants for similar accidents by teaching them water-survival techniques.

During the recent two-day seminar at the FAA's Oklahoma City training center, flight attendants were trained on techniques to survive a crash at sea.

Quiz: Would You Survive A Plane Crash At Sea?

At the beginning of the session, the survival class seemed like summer vacation involving the 30 flight attendants and a pool.

But Prochaska, a veteran flight attendant, said she knew the concept of ditching a plane is far from fun -- and she knew what would come next.

Prochaska said she enrolled in the course knowing that a water landing is survivable with training. The session started with seat cushions.

"It was amazing, actually, how the seat cushion would work as a flotation device," she said.

After inflating the seat cushions, the group of complete strangers joined legs and arms in the pool and stood still, creating a cocoon of warm water around them.

FAA Research Safety Technician Jerry McDown instructed to get those who were feeling cold into the middle of the huddle in an effort to keep them warm until help arrived.

McDown's next lesson was about life vests. He said the right time to pull the trigger is when you are clear from the interior of the plane.

According to McDown, many of those who drowned on Ethiopian Airlines Flight 961 were unable to swim out of the fuselage because they inflated their vest too soon and couldn't squeeze through the tight space.

For that reason, he said, the FAA reminds trainees that it is crucial to avoid pulling the string too early.

After the life-vest session, the participants were back in the water. They huddled together again in what McDown called a "zipper formation."

The bigger the formation, McDown said, the better the chances that survivors will be seen by rescuers flying above.

After help arrives, survivors should break away from the formation to climb into rafts that are distributed by rescue teams.

Although getting into a raft might seem like the easiest part, Prochaska said she discovered the exact opposite.

"(It's) difficult ... to actually get into it -- and that was with help," she said. "I can only imagine what it would be like in an ocean, where there are waves and the turbulence ... and especially if it was really stormy ... how difficult that would be."

After surviving that challenge, the rescue helicopter arrived in the form of a crane that lowered its basket into the water. Finally, the survivors were ready for liftoff after they were tucked in to avoid hitting debris in the water -- or being injured by the chopper.

But what if the rescuers didn't arrive soon after the crash? The FAA had a plan for that as well.

The next exercise after the rescue portion involved the creation of a makeshift shelter on a raft.

As "day" turned to "night" -- thanks to some strategically operated lights -- survivors pulled each other to safety and unofficially elected one flight attendant as the group's leader.

As cold water was shuttled into the pool, the group struggled to set up the raft canopy to keep out the elements. McDown said the cover is a key to survival.

"It can be pretty cold," he said. "Maybe the wind's blowing, and you're wet ... you're getting hypothermic. It will ward off some of the hypothermic conditions."

In the end, all the trainees survived. Having learned that living through a plane ditching is difficult, Prochaska said the aftermath can be as much of a challenge.

"It was, wow, like, 'Wow this is really realistic,'" she said. "And it's like, 'Ewww ... I don't want to do this -- ever."

Experts said that if you ever face a rescue at sea, you should be sure to turn on your emergency locator transmitter and leave it on after entering the raft.

Otherwise, FAA officials said, rescuers might think your signal is something else and may not come to find you.

FAA safety instructors also suggest that overseas travelers carry a survival kit that includes medication, glasses and whatever you need to survive.

Federal experts said it is also wise to keep those items in your pockets rather than inside your carry-on luggage, which you likely won't have time to retrieve in an emergency.

The odds of surviving a plane crash would seem slim, but aviation experts said that doomsday assumptions are not correct.

Over the past 22 years, the National Transportation Safety Board investigated 26 major commercial airline accidents involving nearly 28,00 people.

The study found that more than half the passengers survived.

NTSB investigators credit training exercises such as the one in Oklahoma City, with the relatively high rate of survival.