I did not know that

From the Economist:

Your life-jacket can be found under your seat, but please do not remove it now. In fact, do not bother to look for it at all. In the event of a landing on water, an unprecedented miracle will have occurred, because in the history of aviation the number of wide-bodied aircraft that have made successful landings on water is zero.

You mean Hollywoods been lying to us all these years?

This entry was written by jmd and posted on September 14, 2006 at 5:01 pm and filed under general. Bookmark the permalink. Follow any comments here with the RSS feed for this post. Post a comment or leave a trackback: Trackback URL.

2 Comments

  1. JP
    Posted September 14, 2006 at 11:54 pm | Permalink

    Wikipedia to the rescue:

    (apologies for the long block quote, but I found this interesting…)

    Despite these assertions, there have been water landings in which passengers survived:
    In 2005, Tuninter 1153 (an ATR 72) ditched off the Sicilian coast after running out of fuel. Of 39 aboard, 20 survived with injuries including serious burns. The plane’s wreck was found in three pieces.
    In 2002, Garuda Indonesia 425 (a Boeing 737) successfully ditched into the Bengawan Solo River near Yogyakarta, Java Island after experiencing a twin engine flameout during heavy precipitation and hail. The pilots tried to restart the engines several times before taking the decision to ditch the aircraft. Of the 60 occupants, one, a flight attendant, was killed.[6]
    In 1996, Ethiopian 961 (a 767-200ER) ditched in shallow water 500 meters from land after being hijacked and running out of fuel. Unable to operate flaps, it impacted at high speed, dragging its left wingtip before tumbling and breaking into three pieces. The panicking hijackers were fighting the pilots for the control of the plane at the time of the impact, which caused the plane to roll just before hitting the water, and the subsequent wingtip hitting the water and breakup are a result of this struggle in the cockpit. Of 175 onboard, 52 survived. Some passengers were killed on impact or trapped in the cabin when they inflated their life vests before exiting. Most of the survivors were found hanging onto a section of the fuselage that remained floating.
    In 1970, Antillean 980 (a DC-9-33CF) ditched in mile-deep water after running out of fuel during multiple attempts to land at SXM under low-visibility weather. Of 63 occupants, 40 survivors were recovered by U.S. military helicopters.[7]
    In 1963, an Aeroflot Tupolev 124 ditched into the River Neva after running out of fuel. The aircraft floated and was towed to shore; all 52 onboard survived.[8]
    In 1956, Pan Am 943 (a Boeing 377) ditched into the Pacific after losing two of its four engines. The aircraft was able to circle around USCGC Pontchartrain until daybreak, when it ditched; all 31 onboard survived.[9][10]
    Aircraft also sometimes end up in water by simply rolling off their runways. While such incidents are not quite water landings, the passengers do find themselves swimming. Twice at LaGuardia Airport, aircraft have rolled into the East River; in 1989, USAir 5050, a Boeing 737-401 with 63 people aboard, sustained 2 deaths.[11] In 1993 a China Airlines Boeing 747-409 ended up in water after it overran the 13 runway at Hong Kong Airport on landing during a typhoon with wind gusting to gale force. All of the 396 occupants survived.[12]

  2. Brian
    Posted September 15, 2006 at 8:31 am | Permalink

    I think the Economist article is referring to the picture on the safety card that shows a remarkably intact and non-burning airplane just .. floating on a calm bit of water while people calmly queue up and deplane to the liferafts.

    It didn’t say ‘everyone always dies’ it says ’successful landings on water is zero.’. I submit if your plane breaks up into many many pieces that should not be counted a success.

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