[Mariner]

Having been an air crewman on a C-130 variant, I can tell you there has never been a successful ditching at sea.

As in no survivors. Not once.

Over the entire 60 year life of the aircraft. And probably the best airplane ever built.

[ConservativeMind]

Thank you for that.

Why would that be the case? Is it because so few ever lost power over water?

[DesertRhino]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-PjyGJO7Qm0

With zero radio transmissions indicating a problem or emergency, I suspect it suffered some kind of rapid catastrophic failure like the USMC KC-130 crash in 2017 and tore herself apart too rapidly for even a radio transmission.
The official video reconstruction above is from the accident investigation.

Thoughts?

[PAR35]

As in no survivors. Not once.

Appears to be a somewhat inaccurate statement.

For example: Colombian Air Force C-130 ditched in the Atlantic in 1982. 13 on board. Eight survivors picked up.
https://www.nytimes.com/1982/10/17/us/aircraft-ditches-in-sea-five-on-board-missing.html

A US one went down in the Pacific in the 1990s. One survivor (of 11 on the plane). Too late in the evening to look for any more.

[AlaskaErik]

Having been an air crewman on a C-130 variant, I can tell you there has never been a successful ditching at sea.

I have over 5000 hours as a C-130 loadmaster and I know of at least one C-130 ditching where the aircraft remained intact and eight people survived. That was a Colombian C-130 that ditched in 1982.

[Pontiac]

Over the entire 60 year life of the aircraft. And probably the best airplane ever built.

One man’s opinion. The C-130 has a way to go to beat the DC-3. Still flying cargo since WW II.

DC-3 Flies Itself.