Talk:Water landing

GeoBias
I'm tempted to place a GeoBias tag on this article, but I'm not sure what good it would do. I'm also uncertain if it really fits this article, any views on this? I, for one, see a strong systematic bias towards the US in this, but anyone's free to comment. Also, any views on which tag to use, or  ? --TVPR 10:31, 7 May 2006 (UTC)
 * Yeah, sorry about that! It's just that whenever my references say anything concrete, they're either talking about 1) a specific flight or 2) a US-exclusive statistic. (It doesn't help that the US is the only country that did splashdowns; heck, the German article even leads with an Apollo image.)
 * As for tags, I think globalize is actually a better fit than globalize/USA, although I might just think that because the language is softer.
 * I agree that there's a problem, but I generally wouldn't want us to remove information, and I don't know where to find more. Any particular suggestions? Melchoir 10:58, 7 May 2006 (UTC)
 * Sadly not, I'm completely blank on water landings (except that they sound mysteriously like "crashing into the ocean"). But we should certainly get more information. One could, for starters, expand on country-specific... "things". Such as, this infamous seat cushion is in Scandinavia replaced by a life vest under the seat. Or something - anything, really.--TVPR 11:15, 7 May 2006 (UTC)

For a first base to do research, www.airliners.net forums can be useful: http://www.airliners.net/discussions/tech_ops/read.main/88773/6/#ID88773 (you can also use the search function of the Tech/Ops forum to find other, similar threads, they pop up every few months)

www.airdisaster.com can be used to augment the discussions (which are not wholly reliable)

Interestingly, the forums usually provide several details that should be chackable against NTSB crash reports and other sources: "Here is a quote from "Aiport International", a book by Brian Moynahan, relating to the event (NTSB AAR 70-2):

A Japan Airlines DC8 was making an approach in bad visibility to San Francisco Airport. The pilot thought he was close to the airport when he was still over the bay. Calmly and with great precision, he let the great aircraft down through the murk to a pillow-soft landing in the Pacific. All the 107 passengers and crew clambered out and sat on the wings as the tide went out and the aircraft settled on a mudbank. "

There is a more detailled article on the same website: http://www.airliners.net/articles/read.main?id=1

There is also this, separate incident from Africa: (including photos) http://www.avweb.com/news/news/182363-1.html


 * Great examples, thanks! I'll incorporate them eventually, but feel free to save me the work! Melchoir 19:46, 7 May 2006 (UTC)

I would, but if I don't get about 4000 words of coursework done by tomorrow, I'm in deep trouble.


 * As a young Mr Larrington I remember seeing TV news reports of an aircraft which had come off the runway at Hong Kong's Kai Tak and ended up in the drink, but haven't been able to ferret out any further information. This would have been during the school holidays between Christmas 1972 and September 1974. Mr Larrington (talk) 12:10, 10 July 2009 (UTC)

Lost
I'm not sure whether the crash in Lost could be classified as a water crash-landing (for the central portion of the fuselage, anyhow), but a small reference to it could be made, as it's more or less where the plot begins. Cctoide 22:31, 7 May 2006 (UTC)
 * I'm ignorant about Lost but from Oceanic Flight 815 it doesn't sound like a water landing or really even a water crash to me. When I wrote the original version of this article, I purposefully excluded planes that broke up in mid-air, even from the "Crashing" section, since they're not examples of plane-flies-into-water so much as debris-falls-onto-water. Well... should the article mention them anyway? Melchoir 22:44, 7 May 2006 (UTC)

vandalism or poor research?
the article as at today says that no US aircraft has ever ditched. However, on 16 October 1956 Pan Am Boeing Stratocruiser Clipper Sovereign of the Skies piloted by Capt. Richard N. Ogg ditched mid-point between Honolulu and San Francisco. I believe all passengers and crew survived. More info at: http://www.looksmartcollege.com/p/articles/mi_qa3901/is_200006/ai_n8911736/pg_8?pi=sclPaddington62 07:12, 8 May 2006 (UTC)
 * Very interesting... it's the Slate article that claims "But there has never been a single ditching by a U.S.-flag commercial airline." It's conceivable that this is a precision issue, since Pan American World Airways says it was "the unofficial flag carrier of the United States"; I'm not sure what to make of the unofficial bit. But that's a technicality; the phrase in our article is wrong. I'll remove it and work in the incident. Good catch! Melchoir 07:24, 8 May 2006 (UTC)
 * The phrase "the unofficial flag carrier of the United States" was marketing hype on the part of Pan Am. Other countries had a "official flag carrier" i.e. the national airline. The U.S. never did, but during the early days of regulated international travel, Pan Am came close to filling that role. There is no question that Pan Am was a U.S.-flag airline. In general, I think this article has an "isn't this stupid" attitude that is uncalled for. Accidents in general on commercial aviation, particularly U.S. carriers, are rare. The sorts of incidents that would result in a forced water landing--complete loss of engine power or running out of fuel--almost never happen on commercial carriers. But the overall safety record is due to a strong culture of safety in aviation. Commercial airliners have many layers of backup systems, some of which are rarely used, but all contribute to a low fatality rate compared to other forms of transport. That commercial aircraft carry equipment to be used in the event of a survivable water landing is not foolish, make the passengers feel good nonsense, but part of that safety culture. Much of the equipment is dual use. Seats need cushions anyway, and they have to be removable for cleaning, so make them flotation devices too. Believe me, the airlines would rather not carry a single ounce of unnecessary equipment and passengers would be happier if they were never reminded of the possibility of a crash. All this stuff is forced on them by people who are obsessive about safety. Would you rather it was some other way?--agr 14:06, 4 September 2006 (UTC)
 * Well, this is ironic! I'm responsible for most of the article, and I personally favor the point of view you just outlined, also laid out by Patrick Smith in the three cited "Ask the pilot" columns. If I had any point to make by writing the article, and by including the quotes at the beginning of "Commercial aircraft", it was to set them up for looking foolish in comparison to the evidence! Perhaps in masking that motive I went too far in the other direction? How would you improve it? Melchoir 17:44, 4 September 2006 (UTC)
 * OK, you get points for trying, but the subtlety went over my head. I think encyclopedia articles should be direct, but I trust we can work this out together. For starters, I'd question the scope of the article. There are two others that overlap, landing and emergency landing. Maybe this article should focus on ditching (and maybe be called that) and move the normal water landing stuff to landing. There is a lot to say just about ditching. I would move the press stories questioning these measures to a controversy section toward the end of the article.


 * Some of the comments in the article that bugged me include calling water landing a euphemism. I think it is the technical term, ditching being aviation slang. I also question "Commercial airliners almost never make water landings. The FAA does not require commercial pilots to train to ditch, regulating instead the distance a plane can stray from an airfield.[1] Nonetheless, airlines regularly give safety briefings including the infamous:" The "nonetheless" and "infamous" have negative implications. "Almost never" is similarly misleading as your list shows. And I question the bits about commercial pilot training. Ditching was part of the curriculum when I got a private ticket and commercial pilots are presumably responsible for that knowledge as well. There is a section on ditching in the FAA's Aeronautical Information manual . I'd also add material on close calls that could have resulted in an at sea ditching. See Category:Fuel exhaustion on commercial airliners and Air Transat Flight 236 in particular, a very close call. There may be more, I haven't checked all the articles in the category. --agr 23:24, 4 September 2006 (UTC)
 * Yeah, the minor wording issues I'm certainly not going to argue with; by all means correct them yourself!
 * As for the FAA issue, are you saying we should discount the Slate citation as simply ignorant? I'd be fine with that in principle, but I'm unfamiliar with the context of the procedures you linked to, and it would be nice to have more solid evidence to the contrary.
 * And... let me see if I understand your scope proposal. We could split Ditching into a separate article, move the remainder into Landing, and include summaries of Ditching at both Landing and Emergency landing. (Speaking of which, Landing should have a summary of Emergency landing, too.) I did set up most of the incoming links to accomodate such shuffling. But where would Water landing redirect? Melchoir 00:19, 5 September 2006 (UTC)


 * That is pretty much what i had in mind, with some good additions. I'd either redirect Water landing to Ditching or make it a disambig page (for emergency water landing see Ditching, for planned water landings, see Landing). I'd also ignore the Slate reference. It's somewhat misleading. My understanding is that pilots are expected to know the basics of ditching (land as slow as you can parallel to the swells). Pilots do train in emergency landings and ditching is not that different.  Here is a link to a ditching course that Ariane offers: http://www.ariane-info.com/aia012e.htm We could even include one of the illustrations in the AIM. By the way, most of the links to this article are via Ditching. --agr 04:02, 5 September 2006 (UTC)

Watering vs. Water landing
Isn't it a watering rather than a landing? 4.235.114.98 21:22, 31 May 2007 (UTC)

No.--The Centipede 00:35, 27 July 2007 (UTC)


 * This actually drives me crazzy in English. In German we have landing (Landung) and watering (Wasserung). Calling this a water landing (Wasserlandung) in German is considered amateurish since professionals know that you can only land on land :-) ... So it should be watering in English, but as far as I have found water landing is actually being used. So that's what it is. Something like using landing gear instead of undercarriage although that gear is not only used for landings but for take-offs as well. And before somebody tells me - yes, of course it is not the business of a German to say what something has to be called in English. 100% agree. Just writing this as some kind of view from the sidelines. And I find English to be a really great language and am sure that I could find a lot of shortcommings in German if I wanted (and sometimes I do that for fun). JB. --92.195.71.34 (talk) 19:03, 24 December 2022 (UTC)
 * In English the term "watering" means pouring water on something, such as "watering a lawn with a garden hose." - Ahunt (talk) 19:42, 24 December 2022 (UTC)
 * Sure, I'm aware of that. Also "soiling" does not mean what it should by that logic. On the other hand there is no rule that says a word cannot have different meanings in different context. But in the end language(s) are never perfect and we have to take what we get, even if it hurts sometimes. So have fun and continue your land-ings on water. My pleasure ;-) :-) JB. --92.193.239.45 (talk) 23:15, 25 December 2022 (UTC)
 * Off topic: In German your remark also almost works out - Waesserung (Water onto something, like flowers) vs. Wasserung (something into the water, like planes) ... Over and out. JB. --92.193.239.45 (talk) 23:17, 25 December 2022 (UTC)

Why are we listening to economists?
Economists aren't aerospace engineers and some of their quotes here are demonstrably wrong. As the section 'Commercial Aircraft' currently reads "economists given the voice of authority said it never happened and said it again and so did this other economist but, oh, guess what, here's a list that proves them wrong." 'Despite these assertions' tends to make said assertions false and thus shouldn't be given place of precedence in the section. Words like 'infamous' don't help either. I've rewritten the section and completely dropped the Levitt quote (as it is, as said previously, demonstrably false). --The Centipede 00:35, 27 July 2007 (UTC)


 * Errrrr..... its not economists that are commenting on water landings. The Economist is a current affairs newspaper. They quoted an expert in aviation who we can assume probably is an aerospace engineer or something of the kind. Dhonky (talk) 12:01, 16 January 2009 (UTC)


 * I think the quotes from The Economist are unhelpful. The claim that "no large airliner has ever made an emergency landing on water" is demonstrably false and was so when written: Ethiopian 961 (a hijacked Boeing 767) made an emergency landing in the Indian Ocean off Comoros in 1996.  The pilot was mostly in control of the aircraft (except that the hijackers were trying to wrest control from him) and chose the landing trajectory: this was an emergency landing rather than a crash.  Nonetheless, the plane came in very fast and wasn't level so broke up on impact.  Fifty people survived and used their life jackets.  The claim that there has never been a "successful" landing on water is meaningless.  What does "successful" mean?  That the plane came down in one piece and everybody got off largely un-injured?  That the plane was badly damaged but intact and the majority of passengers survived?  That at least one passenger survived?  Did Ethiopian 961 land successfully, given that 50 people survived and nobody would have survived if the plane had just hit the ocean any old way?  Either way, the argument that life jackets are useless because there's never been a "successful" water landing of a wide-bodied aircraft is like saying that airbags are useless because there's never been a "successful" car crash.  The point is to save some lives in some circumstances, not to save everybody all the time. Dricherby (talk) 15:47, 19 January 2009 (UTC)

I removed the part about general aviation. It was irrelevant and only talked about one pilot. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 65.189.24.109 (talk) 21:20, 17 December 2007 (UTC)


 * There's a picture of a JAL DC8 that successfully ditched off San Francisco in 1968 here: - no-one was hurt and the aircraft later flew again.  — Preceding unsigned comment added by 80.4.57.101 (talk) 17:25, 17 February 2012 (UTC)

Large Body vs. Wide Body
The airbus that crashed is a large body plane, it is just not a wide body plane, and needs to be corrected. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Drgong (talk • contribs) 13:31, 16 January 2009 (UTC)

"several successful water landings" could use cite(s)
"there have been several 'successful' (survivable) water landings by narrow-body and propeller-driven airliners" -- Could we please give some details and cites here? When? Where? What type of plane? -- 201.37.230.43 (talk) 15:38, 16 January 2009 (UTC)

Miami Air Lease CV340 N41626 around December 2004. at MAule lake, Aventura FL. Both Pilots survived, the airplane came to a rest at the lake intact. Great feat by pilot Alejandro Bristol. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 67.191.1.44 (talk) 07:26, 7 February 2009 (UTC)

Redundancies/Inconsistencies
Both this page and emergency landing contain bulleted lists of intentional passenger aircraft ditchings. First, this seems redundant; couldn't one page link to the other? Second, the lists are out of sync and do not agree. This page has a list of 10 incidents, but emergency landing claims that only 8 ditchings have occurred. Roothog (talk) 22:50, 16 January 2009 (UTC)


 * For that matter, it seems as though the entire section of this article about aircraft ditchings could be removed and replaced with a link to (a possibly expanded) emergency landing. Roothog (talk) 22:54, 16 January 2009 (UTC)

Aren't these two survival rates easy enough to understand from the raw figures? Duh. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 218.231.117.254 (talk) 10:26, 18 January 2009 (UTC)
 * Of 39 aboard, 20 survived with injuries including serious burns. ... The survival rate was 51%.
 * Both occupants survived. The survival rate was 100%.


 * How does this relate to my questions regarding inconsistencies due to unnecessary replication across two pages of Wikipedia? Roothog (talk) 00:04, 19 January 2009 (UTC)

Speaking of redundancies, the Ethiopian 961 is listed in two sections, as a ditching and as an "other". 141.123.223.100 (talk) 18:32, 19 January 2009 (UTC)

Contains Original Research?
First I have to apologize that I forgot to login when I add the original research tag.

The session concerned contains a list of "examples of water landings in which passengers survived after a planned and intentional water landing after an in-flight emergency", and then claims those data demonstrate "a twinjet airliner has a greater chance of a planned water landing or ditching when compared statistically to a trijet or multi-engined turbofan/turbojet powered aircraft or airliner".

I think this is an original and biased research. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Billyauhk (talk • contribs) 04:45, 17 January 2009 (UTC)


 * In my opinion that's a pretty clearcut instance of original synthesis. I am removing it, if someone has a source for the assertion they can add it back. -- Diletante (talk) 17:33, 17 January 2009 (UTC)

Definitions
Is it possible to define "intentional" and "unintentional" landings reliably? Right now, "intentional" is defined as planned and intentional water landing. Obviously, none of the examples were planned. Emergencies aren't planned for in advance. I'd suggest redefining the first bucket as controlled water landing (even if only partially controlled, e.g. with engines out, with stuck hydraulics...) and all else (that will mostly consist of CFITs like National Airlines Flight 193). NVO (talk) 11:08, 18 January 2009 (UTC)
 * The language "... "a planned event in which a flight crew knowingly makes a controlled emergency landing in water..." is the verbatim definition of a ditching (or "planned and intentional water landing") as stated in the NTSB Aviation Coding Manual and thus cannot be changed. (Centpacrr (talk) 13:17, 19 January 2009 (UTC))
 * I see; maybe it needs further introduction/clarification that explains how an emergency becomes a planned event in the official language. NVO (talk) 17:02, 22 January 2009 (UTC)
 * The statement needs to be rewritten/read in the right context. The definition and discussion is around the reaction to an emergency.  If the crew react to the emergency by planning and implementing a water landing... then that is a planned and intentional water landing.  If, however, they did not plan and intend a water landing as part of their emergency reaction - it is an unplanned and unintentional water landing.  A good example would be aircraft that, during an emergency approach, miss the runway and "land" in the water.  It was not the plan nor intention for the aircraft to land in the water, whereas in the Hudson river example, the pilot chose and planned the ditching location.  The difference is important as the degree of planning and intention in conducting a ditch, appears to be a compelling factor in the survivability of such a landing.  I.e. it is the planning and intention that seperates an aircraft from ditching into the water as opposed to simply crashing. Icemotoboy (talk) 21:49, 22 January 2009 (UTC)


 * A ditching is a planned forced landing on water by a land aircraft. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 80.7.147.13 (talk) 17:14, 5 November 2012 (UTC)


 * The term ditching comes from early flying at Brooklands which had a sewage farm nearby. Aviators who accidentally came down in the sewage farm treatment ponds were said to have 'ditched'. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2.29.18.184 (talk) 15:11, 26 April 2015 (UTC)

A ditching every day - dubious
There is an extraordinary claim in this article that there's 1 ditching per day in US waters alone. The cited source is a Slate Magazine article that says, without a citation itself, that the US Coast Guard makes this claim. But this NTSB report from 1999, about 1996 data, appears to say on page 20 that there were 2 ditchings that whole year. I tagged the statement in the article with the "dubious" tag but don't have enough certainty to remove a cited claim, even one that uses such a dubious citation. Tempshill (talk) 07:18, 19 January 2009 (UTC)


 * Military seems to agree http://www.dtic.mil/cgi-bin/GetTRDoc?AD=ADA446408&Location=U2&doc=GetTRDoc.pdf 174.102.83.126 (talk) 02:08, 15 January 2010 (UTC)

It looks like there are about 15 ditchings per year, per the NTSB. http://www.equipped.com/ditchingmyths.htm This is not "one ditching a day". I'm going to redact it. Dweekly (talk) 08:55, 17 January 2010 (UTC)

Air Transat incident
I was wondering how come the Air Transat water landing incident is not here..."Antonio Piragua Martin" 5:58, January 20th, 2009 (UTC)

"In" vs "On" water
Although it seems obvious, there is a difference. If it's buoyant, it's "on" the water. If it sinks, it's "in" the water. Any contrary positions?

Yeah, bikeshed.--Ipatrol (talk) 01:26, 23 January 2009 (UTC)

23 November 1996, Ethiopian 961 Figures Inconsistent
In the "Survival rates of passenger plane water ditchings" section, Ethiopian flight 961 is listed as "killing 125 of the 175 passengers and crew on board." This math puts the survivor amount to 50, or approximately 28.6%, though the figure of 29% is listed.. Then, in the "Planes landing on water for other reasons" section, Ethiopian flight 961 is listed as "Of 175 on board, 52 survived." And then the statement is made, "The survival rate was 30%." This does not align with what was stated earlier in this article. Which is correct? —Preceding unsigned comment added by Javier Odom (talk • contribs) 16:11, 26 January 2009 (UTC)


 * This 767 was not a planned water ditching. 166.129.12.231 (talk) 22:58, 29 January 2009 (UTC)


 * As discussed above, Ethiopian 961 is considered a planned ditching. "Planning" a water landing need not be explicitly stated, nor far in advance of the event. All it requires is that the cockpit crew be in some degree of control, attempting to set the aircraft down safely, and aware that the touchdown is likely to be on water. 96.251.70.114 (talk) 04:52, 10 February 2009 (UTC)


 * I don't intend too get in the middle of this but Ethiopian 961 is still in both sections in the article. Noha307 (talk) 18:02, 12 June 2009 (UTC)

VTOL, Rotating Wing - Links
Maybe a section on current "controlled landing", i.e. ditching techniques would help.

Include accounts of successful landings, marine and terrestial and video links.

suggestions: Wiki: "Sikorsky S-61N G-BEID"

"Helicopter Crash. Pilot could not be saved"  "Helicopter Crash 1"  Pete318 (talk) 19:06, 17 March 2009 (UTC)

—Preceding unsigned comment added by Pete318 (talk • contribs) 18:06, 17 March 2009 (UTC)
 * Former now corrected to Sikorsky S-61N G-BEIDLeadSongDog (talk) 21:58, 17 March 2009 (UTC)

More recent cases:Cougar Helicopters Flight 91 and April 2009 North Sea helicopter crash. LeadSongDog come howl  22:26, 7 April 2009 (UTC)

No documented water ditching of passenger plane with no survivors whatsoever
I have removed the "dubious" flag, as there is just no documented case of a passenger plane that has attempted a water ditching where there has not been at least one survivor. As you can see from the examples, there have sometimes been 100% survivors and no case of zero survivors. This is not to say that there have not been passenger planes missing at sea with their passengers, of course, and it is not to say that there have not been passenger plane crashes at sea that have resulted in zero survivors. It is meant to say that when there has been an attempt of an airliner at an intentional water landing, there have always been survivorsBert Schlossberg (talk) 06:41, 10 January 2010 (UTC)

"...for other reasons"
"Aircraft also sometimes end up in water by running off the end of runways, landing in water short of the end of a runway, or even being forcibly flown into the water during homicidal events." Homicidal events? Such as...? An interesting thing to say when every landing listed in this section was an accident. --Elemarth (talk) 23:32, 18 June 2010 (UTC)


 * Incidentally found an example of a suicidal event. I'd still like to know what the person who wrote that was thinking. --Elemarth (talk) 02:08, 20 June 2010 (UTC)


 * Maybe the person was thinking about EgyptAir Flight 990. The media was full of speculation of the meaning of the last words. Even so, the NTSB reports do not state anything like a homicide (or suicide) attempt.
 * Since nobody seems to be able to find a "homicidal crash into water" maybe one should rephrase this sentence? Overshooting (rain, ice, speed) of the rwy is far more common anyways... WideBlueSky (talk) 16:49, 3 August 2010 (UTC)


 * Actually I did find two homicidal crashes (but they didn't crash into water): Pacific Air Lines Flight 773 and Pacific Southwest Airlines Flight 1771
 * Japan Airlines Flight 350 is the single suicidal crash into water I found so far.
 * Still, such events are extremely rare... —Preceding unsigned comment added by WideBlueSky (talk • contribs) 15:35, 5 August 2010 (UTC)

Redundancies/Inconsistencies Part 2: Emergency Landing
As mentioned a year ago the article Emergency Landings also refers to emergency water landings and also includes a list of ditchings. While the two lists are almost identical, the one at Emergency Landings includes cargo airplanes while the one here strictly refers to passenger aircraft. Neither list distinguishes between airliners (USA FARs: CFR 14 Part 121) and general aviation (Part 91) or on demand operators (Part 135). Neither list is complete. I would suggest to remove one of the lists and adjust the remaining one. To convert the examples into a table might be helpful.

BTW: (I know, the discussion was started several years ago above) I would really call an intentional emergency waterlanding a "ditching" throughout this article. It's not just pilots' slang as someone mentioned above but a term used by the FAA and NTSB,... as stated in the beginning of the article. However, I speciffically dislike the sentence "The phrase "water landing" is also used as a euphemism for crash-landing into water in an aircraft not designed for the purpose." Several things are getting mixed up: water landing / ditching /crashing. What do you think? —Preceding unsigned comment added by WideBlueSky (talk • contribs) 16:57, 2 August 2010 (UTC)

Ups, sorry, forgot to sign before! WideBlueSky (talk) 17:09, 2 August 2010 (UTC)

Merge?
I don't know if I'm doing it correctly but I want to suggest, that the section "by Design" will be merged with Landing while the part about Ditching be merged with Emergency landing.

Please look also at Emergency landing and Crash landing since I posted similar proposals there. In my opinion, the whole landing issue at Wikipedia became a little confusing. Please let me know if you agree/disagree. Thanks! WideBlueSky (talk) 11:19, 4 August 2010 (UTC)

Survival rates
I edited the section out that listed survival rates. The reasons-


 * 1- It's WP:Original research
 * 2- The statistics are incomplete. Laoag International Airlines Flight 585 is not included. Ok I wrote the article just today but think of this- Aviation Safety Network has a database of thousands of aviation incidents. How many other water landings aren't listed in the article.? I'm sure there are others.- William 16:59, 9 January 2012 (UTC)


 * I agree, good call. - Ahunt (talk) 18:02, 9 January 2012 (UTC)

The usage of is under discussion, see talk:Splashdown (spacecraft landing) -- 70.50.151.11 (talk) 04:07, 4 March 2014 (UTC)

Plagiarism
I'm concerned that sections of this page were a result of plagiarism. The following paragraphs is word-for-word taken from the book "Aviation Management" by K. C. Khurana, found from a Google search for "life jacket wide bodied plane water" (which also led me to this page), unless the book used Wikipedia as a source. The book and page with the below paragraphs can be accessed via this link to Google Books


 * While there have been several 'successful' (survivable) water landings by narrow-body and propeller-driven airliners, few commercial jets have ever touched down 'perfectly' on water. There has been a good deal of popular controversy over the efficiency of life vests and rafts. For example, Ralph Nader's Aviation Consumer Action Project had been quoted as saying that a wide body jet would “shatter like a raw egg dropped on pavement, killing most if not all passengers on impact, even in calm seas with well-trained pilots and good landing trajectories."[5]


 * Also, in December 2002, The Economist had quoted an expert as claiming that "No large airliner has ever made an emergency landing on water" in an article that goes on to charge, "So the life jackets ... have little purpose other than to make passengers feel better."[6][7] This idea was repeated in The Economist in September 2006 in an article which reported that "in the history of aviation the number of wide-bodied aircraft that have made successful landings on water is zero."[8]


 * Of note is the 15 January 2009 ditching of US Airways Flight 1549, an Airbus A320 narrow-body jet, which successfully ditched in the Hudson River mid-river between Manhattan in New York City and Weehawken, New Jersey. All on board survived, showing that inflatable slide rafts and life jackets can sometimes serve their purposes, although photographs from the incident show that very few passengers were wearing life jackets. After take-off from La Guardia Airport, initial reports cited dual engine failure due to bird strikes at a low altitude. Pilot Chesley B. "Sully" Sullenberger was able to cross the Bronx in a slow turn to the southwest, pass over the George Washington Bridge and ditch the plane in the Hudson River. The left engine broke away on contact with the river.[9] All 155 passengers and crew survived with only one major injury and 77 minor injuries,[10][11] in part because the plane came to a halt adjacent to the passenger ferry route between NYC and New Jersey.

Herenthere 03:41, 9 March 2014 (UTC)


 * Axed. Nice catch!  Acroterion   (talk)   03:45, 9 March 2014 (UTC)


 * Thanks, Acroterion. I don't think the entire section has to be cut completely, but perhaps cited? Although the writing would require some reworking so as to not be a straightforward copy as long as the references that were originally provided are checked to ensure that they exist. Herenthere 04:51, 9 March 2014 (UTC)

External links modified
Hello fellow Wikipedians,

I have just modified 2 external links on Water landing. Please take a moment to review my edit. If you have any questions, or need the bot to ignore the links, or the page altogether, please visit this simple FaQ for additional information. I made the following changes:
 * Corrected formatting/usage for http://ecfr.gpoaccess.gov/cgi/t/text/text-idx?c=ecfr&sid=40cca8a81d4453dd654a9a8e0e63e57d&rgn=div5&view=text&node=14%3A3.0.1.1.4&idno=14
 * Added archive https://web.archive.org/web/20130415104206/http://www.thejakartaglobe.com/home/lion-air-passenger-plane-crashes-in-bali/585464 to http://www.thejakartaglobe.com/home/lion-air-passenger-plane-crashes-in-bali/585464

When you have finished reviewing my changes, you may follow the instructions on the template below to fix any issues with the URLs.

Cheers.— InternetArchiveBot  (Report bug) 22:14, 18 September 2017 (UTC)

Yak-40 in Kiev in 1976 - not ditching
The 02 June 1976 Yak-40 accident in Kiev was not ditching, it was a relatively normal engineless emergency landing on a flood-meadow, which was rather dry at the season. The aircraft was only slightly damaged, it has been repaired and still flies as of 2020. For further details see http://www.airdisaster.ru/database.php?id=1434 and https://russianplanes.net/reginfo/10330 — Preceding unsigned comment added by 188.163.114.36 (talk) 21:19, 14 August 2020 (UTC)


 * There is no problem removing it, as it was not sourced and was tagged anyway. - Ahunt (talk) 01:06, 15 August 2020 (UTC)

Flight Number
Can someone add flight number in the table, i think its untidy. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Emery Cool21 (talk • contribs)

Dates in table
Why is the date of each ditching repeated at the beginning of each entry in the Detail field? Carguychris (talk) 21:29, 26 September 2023 (UTC)

CST-100 starliner
Te article says that the CST-100 is planned to splash down in water, but that's just not true. It's intended to land on land with airbags. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Sp epic (talk • contribs) 03:30, 15 January 2024 (UTC)