[Northern Yankee]

There's a video out there taken from a G.I. in the Pacific during World War 2. (I believe it's from Iwo Jima.) It shows a B-29 ditching in the ocean not too far from the beach. The plane remained intact and the crew was able to escape.

You can find it on You Tube.

[tanknetter]

There's a video out there taken from a G.I. in the Pacific during World War 2. (I believe it's from Iwo Jima.) It shows a B-29 ditching in the ocean not too far from the beach. The plane remained intact and the crew was able to escape.

My understanding is that this was somewhat SOP for crippled B-29s returning to the Marianas. Pilots were told to ditch their Superforts off the beach rather than risk shutting down a runway by crashing. There are lots of B-29s sitting underwater just off the ends of the old WWII runways on Guam, Tinian and Siapan.

On a related subject, ever see "The Last Flight of Noah's Ark"? Old Disney movie from the 70s or early 80s involving a group of castaways that converts a ditched B-29 into a raft to make it home.

Airliners are designed to be ditched and stay afloat for a certain amount of time. While it helps to have near-empty tanks, jet fuel is buoyant (less so than air, of course), so dumping fuel prior to ditching helps (not just for buoyancy, but re risk of post-ditching fire), but isn't required.