Have any planes ever successfully landed on water in an emergency?(the big ones that take you on holiday)?

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Very happily married.

None that I am aware of, except for one or two that slid off the end of the runway in Hong Kong-but they were going very slowly at the time.

Smug Monkey

Depends what you consider successful.

I know of none that haven't cart wheeled when coming in for a splash landing.

If the wing tips don't hit and cause a cartwheel, the engines do.

That water landing in the carribean(i think?) a few years back was disastrous looking but many survived.

insane_mad_maniak

well considering they have to go atleast 180MPH to stay in the air, and usually cruise at 500MPH, i doubt that a impact of 180MPH on water would be a succesful landing, maybe if the pilot was good and they got teh speed down to 100 and a smooth calm water. maybe yes. but none that i have heard of.

dats webster

some planes have floats beneath them which emerges out and inflate during water landings.

Thomas T

Never. These aircraft are engineered for air not water. Here is another disquieting factoid. Never have the life-rafts that are packed away in the ceiling of many of these commercial aircraft been used in all the years of flying across the oceans. If an airplane overshoots the runway and settles in the drink, the exit slides may double as flotation rafts. But if anyone knows of anytime a life-raft has ever been used after a "water landing", I'd like to know about it.

Maria Peters

There was a case where a DC-9 did successfully survive a water landing for enough to allow many people to escape:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ALM_Flight_980

However, the DC-9 did not have wing mounted engines which helped. When you have wing mounted engines mean that a plane has to land very evenly, otherwise the plane can roll over and break up.

One may not necessarily think about a crash though, a plane might land long on a runway and end up in the water, in which case an evacuation in the water would be necessary, that has indeed happened quite a few times.

Airlines still have to prepare as well as they can, if a plane ever crash landed into the water again and nobody was prepared, everyone would scream about why the airlines did nothing prepare.

Jaygee

I believe the answer is yes .it happened when i was a kid in some sunny place really close to a nice beach that all i can remember

Dave J

Yeah...... course they can!

200+ tonnes of Aluminium, Jet engines, passengers, luggage, inflight meals floats on water doesn't it!!!!?

PS, why does your atvar look like the geek off Holloaks?

Grey Mare

Never,.............. except in Hollywood movies.

The plane could, in theory, float on water, but you would have to get it there first.

The speed of the plane in flight is your main problem. As soon as the plane, or any part of it, makes contact with the water, it comes to a virtual dead stop. Meanwhile, the rest of the plane keeps on going at whatever speed it was flying at (250 ~ 600 MPH). The net result is that bits get torn off and the plane goes into a violent spin, smash, bounce and roll, getting torn and smashed to bits in the process.

Aeroplanes are very fragile, since they're not built to displace anything denser than air. Water is about a thousand times that density, and is very unforgiving. Try slapping your hand into a bath tub full of water. See how freely your hand moves in the air, and how suddenly it stops when it hits the water. Now imagine a Jumbo Jet at about 250 tons, and flying at, say 400 MPH. BANG, CRASH, SMASH!

Tina Vashniche

Never heard yet of one of those big passenger planes landing successfully on water.

They crash because of the speed or weight or something like that. One t.v. show documented a plane that was hijacked and ran out of fuel over the sea and landed in the water, it crashed, the pilot and some passengers lived to tell the story. So no never heard of a successful landing, but there can be survivors depending on the speed and impact.

nobody puts baby in the corner

Yea, I've seen loads of them do it on the little safety video thing they put on for you.

slipstreamer

Yes, I have heard of a successful (such as it is) water landing or ditch. Many die though, it's nature of the thing. A success is when there is a survivor or two. A successful crash water-landing also does not imply that the plane will float - of course it won't.

The best example I found was ithe April 2, 1956 - Northwest Orient Airlines Flight 2 crash. The Plane was a Boeing Stratocruiser aircraft that was ditched into the Puget Sound just off the Seattle waterfront shortly after takeoff . All of those aboard survived the ditching and escaped the aircraft before it sank, but four passengers and one flight attendant subsequently died.

Paolo D

i just had a deja vu... tsk.. crazy!

Michael W

LMFAO ^^

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