Y’know, this may be the first successful (as in, the plane stayed together) ditching I’ve ever heard of involving a plane with wing-mounted high-bypass engines. There’ve been ditchings in the past with DC-8s and maybe 707s, and I think there was a 727 wreck where the plane did a controlled flight into water and most of the people got out (and a Caribbean ditching with a DC-9 where about 2/3 survived). But I’d always heard that it was supposedly impossible to successfully ditch a plane with wing-mounted high-bypass engines, because those big intakes would act like scoops and either rip the wings off or flip the plane over. So much for that, I guess!
}:-)4
There probably aren’t any rental cars available.
It’s going to be interesting to see the results from the data recorders.
Well, I again have to admit surprise... after looking around, it appears that this is the first ATTEMPTED ditching by either Boeing-737 or its knockoff, the Airbus-320. There have been a few crashes into water, but this seems to be the first controlled flight into the water.
So, yeah, I’ll reiterate what I wrote earlier: I wouldn’t be surprised if, to the pilot, the only time he was really crossing his fingers in this whole incident was when the water was coming up toward him, and he was saying, “Well, this is the one thing I haven’t really done before... I hope to God this works the way I’ve been trained!”...