By design capsule descends under two of three parachutes.
Seaplanes,
flying boats, and
amphibious aircraft are designed to
take off and land on water. Water-landing can be supported by a hull-shaped
fuselage and/or
pontoons. The availability of a long effective runway was historically important on lifting size restrictions on aircraft, and their freedom from constructed strips remains useful for transportation to lakes and other remote areas. The ability to loiter on water is also important for marine rescue operations and
fire fighting. One disadvantage of water alighting is that it is dangerous in the presence of
waves. Furthermore, the necessary equipment compromises the craft's aerodynamic efficiency and speed.
Spacecraft Early crewed
spacecraft launched by the United States were designed to alight on water by the
splashdown method. The craft would
parachute into the water, which acted as a cushion to bring the craft to a stop. Alighting over water rather than land made
braking rockets unnecessary, but its disadvantages included difficult retrieval and the danger of drowning. The NASA
Space Shuttle design was intended to land on a
runway instead. The
SpaceX Dragon uses water landings, and has carried crew since 2020.
In distress ditched on the
Hudson River in 2009 with all passengers surviving. While ditching is extremely uncommon in commercial passenger travel, small aircraft tend to ditch slightly more often because they usually have only one engine and their systems have fewer redundancies. According to the
National Transportation Safety Board, there are about a dozen ditchings per year. Reasons for ditching vary, but the most common are
engine failure,
flat spin, and
pilot error.
General aviation General aviation includes all fields of aviation outside of military or scheduled (commercial) flights. This classification includes small aircraft, e.g., training aircraft, airships, gliders, helicopters, and corporate aircraft, including
business jets and other for-hire operations. General aviation has the highest accident and incident rate in aviation, with 16 deaths per million flight hours, compared to 0.74 deaths per million flight hours for commercial flights (North America and Europe).
Commercial aircraft In the United States, the
FAA does not
require commercial pilots to train to ditch but airline cabin personnel must train on the evacuation process. In addition, the FAA implemented rules under which circumstances (kind of operator, number of passengers, weight, route) an aircraft has to carry emergency equipment including floating devices such as
life jackets and
life rafts. Some aircraft are designed with the possibility of a water landing in mind.
Airbus aircraft, for example, feature a "ditching button" which, if pressed, closes valves and openings underneath the aircraft, including the outflow valve, the air inlet for the emergency
RAT, the avionics inlet, the extract valve, and the flow control valve. It is meant to slow flooding in a water landing.
Airplane water ditchings Aircraft landing on water for other reasons landed in
Chuuk Lagoon on 28 September 2018 Aircraft also sometimes end up in water by running off the ends of runways, landing in water short of the end of a runway, or even being forcibly flown into the water during suicidal/homicidal events. Twice at
LaGuardia Airport, an aircraft has rolled into the
East River (
USAir Flight 5050 and
USAir Flight 405). • 5 September 1954:
KLM Flight 633, a
Lockheed L-1049C-55-81 Super Constellation, suffered a re-extension of the landing gear shortly after taking off from
Shannon Airport, which the flight crew was not aware. This caused the plane to descend and ditch into the
River Shannon. 28 of the 56 people on board survived. • • 13 January 1969:
Scandinavian Airlines System Flight 933, a
McDonnell Douglas DC-8-62, ditched in
Santa Monica Bay while on approach to runway 07R of
Los Angeles International Airport,
California. Out of the 45 people on board the plane, 4 drowned, 11 are missing and presumed dead, 17 were injured, and 13 sustained no injuries. • • • • • • 28 February 1984:
Scandinavian Airlines System Flight 901, a
McDonnell Douglas DC-10-30, overran the runway shortly after landing at
John F. Kennedy International Airport and ended up with its nose in shallow water. All 177 occupants on board survived with 12 of them sustaining injuries. • • 31 August 1988:
CAAC Flight 301, a
Hawker Siddeley Trident, overran the runway at
Kai Tak international Airport and ended up in
Kowloon Bay, breaking into two pieces. 7 of the 89 occupants on board perished and 15 others sustained injuries. • 26 September 1988:
Aerolineas Argentinas Flight 648, a
Boeing 737, landed hard and overran the runway at
Ushuaia Airport and ended up in shallow water. All 62 people aboard survived. • • • • • • • • 3 May 2019:
Miami Air International Flight 293, a
Boeing 737-800,
hydroplaned and experienced a
runway excursion upon landing at
Naval Air Station Jacksonville. The airplane came to rest in the shallow waters of
St. Johns River, sustaining substantial damage. All 143 passengers and crew on board the plane survived, although twenty-one people on board suffered minor injuries.
Military aircraft A limited number of pre-World War II military aircraft, such as the
Grumman F4F Wildcat and
Douglas TBD Devastator, were equipped with flotation bags that kept them on the surface in the event of a ditching. The "water bird" emergency landing is a technique developed by the
Canadian Forces to safely land the
Sikorsky CH-124 Sea King helicopter if one engine fails while flying over water. The emergency landing technique allows the
boat-hull equipped aircraft to land on the water in a controlled fashion. ==Space launch vehicle water landings==