When Airplanes Make Emergency Landings on Water

How skill and rigorous training helped pilots endure when ditching was the only option.

Only two of the four large propellers were still turning as the Boeing B-17D slowly descended in the mid-afternoon. The Flying Fortress—now essentially a 35,000-pound glider—was on a course to land in the Pacific Ocean.

On board, it must have seemed like déjà vu all over again for Eddie Rickenbacker. The World War I ace pilot and champion racecar driver had nearly died 20 months earlier when an Eastern Air Lines Douglas DC-3 had crashed. This time, on October 21, 1942, Rickenbacker was on an inspection tour of air bases in the early days of World War II when faulty navigation equipment caused the aircraft to stray off course. Running low on fuel and with no place to land, the pilot was forced to set down on a remote section of the Pacific with few islands and even less shipping or air traffic.

Though the B-17D was eased into the water in the trough between waves, it still struck with such force that bolted-down equipment went flying through the fuselage. The large aircraft bounced twice, then settled into the sea. Water quickly flooded the fuselage as survivors struggled to escape the sinking airplane.

Barely able to walk because of his previous accident, Rickenbacker grabbed his cane and pulled himself through a hatch to stand on one of the wings. Water crested over his feet as eight- to 10-foot swells pounded the airplane. Rickenbacker, who had faced death many times, stared at the seemingly infinite blue-green ocean around him and thought: “So this is the placid Pacific.”

For 24 days, eight survivors drifted on two rafts lashed together with rope, trying to stave off starvation and dehydration. They were finally rescued after being spotted by a U.S. Navy pilot flying past in a Vought OS2U Kingfisher floatplane. Rickenbacker had lost 40 pounds. The next year, he reflected on the ordeal for a magazine article: “The easiest thing in the world is to die. The hardest is to live.”

Emergency landings on water, more commonly known as “ditching,” become survival stories that encompass fleeting moments of descent followed by hours, days, or even weeks of endurance at sea. Prior to World War II, landing in the drink wasn’t something pilots thought much about. Transoceanic flights were still relatively rare, except for a few pioneering companies, such as Pan Am, which operated grand flying boats like the Martin M-130 and the Boeing B-314. Modern passenger service across the ocean didn’t even begin until late 1945.

But with the United States actively involved in a two-ocean war, military aircraft were flying nearly constantly over long stretches of sea. The dozens of wrecked aircraft still submerged in former ditching hotspots—Rekata Bay in the Pacific and the Adriatic Sea off the coast of Croatia—are testaments to the dangers that confronted pilots (see “Crash Course,” Fall 2024). Damage sustained during combat, combined with the unreliability of aviation equipment at the time—especially when aircraft were being rapidly mass-produced—exponentially increased the odds of having to make a water landing, according to Dan Bubb, aviation historian and associate professor in residence at the University of Nevada and executive director of the Nevada Aerospace Hall of Fame.

“Some 80 years ago, the chances of having to ditch aircraft were higher due to less sophisticated engines and technology,” says Bubb. “Even though planes then were built pretty solidly, the chances of having to ditch still were within the realm of possibility.” And some aircraft just weren’t meant to land on water, including the North American P-51 Mustang and Supermarine Spitfire. Both fighters have air scoops on their undercarriages, which let water rapidly enter. Because of this vulnerability, Mustang and Spitfire pilots were advised to instead bail out when flying over water. In fact, the instruction manual reminded P-51 pilots they had only about two seconds to get out of the airplane before it sank.

As the war progressed, air-sea rescue squadrons equipped with Consolidated PBY Catalina flying boats were deployed and submarines were assigned to lifeguard stations in areas where Navy carrier task force operations and bomber raids were planned. Among the pilots who owed their lives to a rescue from a submarine crew was future U.S. president George Herbert Walker Bush, who was a young Navy pilot in World War II.

On June 19, 1944, Bush and two crewmen launched their bomb-laden Grumman TBM-1C Avenger from the deck of the aircraft carrier USS San Jacinto during the Battle of the Philippine Sea. Soon after takeoff, the airplane was hit by enemy fire and began losing oil pressure. Bush told the crew they were going down: “We’re going to have to ditch. Prepare for a water landing.” He then gently set the torpedo bomber down on the sea and the three men scrambled into a life-raft. They floated for hours, with Bush vomiting uncontrollably and bleeding from his forehead until help arrived.

During the war, pilots and aircrews were regularly schooled in how to execute ditching procedures. In 1944, the War Department released a training film stating that every man on a U.S. Army Air Forces bomber needed to practice “ditching drills in his own ship until it becomes automatic.”

Today, the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) requires all commercial airline pilots in the United States to complete training on how to ditch. And every day, millions of airline passengers, with life vests stored beneath their seats, are reminded by flight attendants of the procedures “in the unlikely event of an emergency landing” over water. The heroics of flight crews and pilots—for example, Chesley “Sully” Sullenberger, who landed an Airbus A320 in the Hudson River in 2009—act as additional reminders that, even in peacetime, ditching remains a possibility for any aircraft that takes to the skies.

Yet, ditching incidents are now far less common than other types of aviation accidents. Typically, there are 12 to 15 emergency water landings per year across all categories of aviation: commercial, general, and military. That’s a significant drop from the 1980s, when the aviation industry averaged some 30 ditchings annually. Given the billions of air miles traveled by people each year, the odds of getting wet during a flight are nearly infinitesimal. 

Not only is ditching infrequent, it’s also one of the safest kinds of aviation accidents. “Statistics show that 90 percent of controlled ditchings are survivable,” says Dorothy Cochrane, the curator for general aviation in the National Air and Space Museum’s aeronautics department. “So don’t panic. Your ditched position should be readily pinpointed for rescue even if you have complete avionics failure. An emergency locator transmitter (ELT), required on most aircraft, will automatically broadcast your position, as will your cellphone—even if you’re not in a voice service area.”

Falling tiger

Today, the basic principles of a water landing are nearly the same as they were in previous decades. Pilots are told to slow the aircraft to a near stall while landing with the nose slightly up and the tail down. The goal is to head the aircraft into the wind and set down on the top or backside of a swell while parallel to the waves. Guidelines in the Aeronautical Information Manual, published by the FAA, include an important caveat: “Remember one axiom – avoid the face of a swell.”

Equally important is a flight crew’s familiarity with their aircraft. Checklists included with each airplane detail the procedures pilots are expected to follow. They must know how to operate emergency equipment, and cabin crews are instructed on how to render first aid to sick or injured passengers.

Pilots are reminded about the potential for ditching each time they are tested on flight simulators, usually every six to 12 months. They are given a scenario where the aircraft has lost power and is descending toward a body of water, and they must demonstrate how to handle the situation up until the point of contact with the surface of the water.

Steps listed in the Aeronautical Information Manual’s distress and urgency procedures section detail numerous scenarios and important steps aviators need to be aware of when preparing to ditch. All of them are dependent on and greatly influenced by three primary factors: sea conditions and wind, type of aircraft, and the skill and technique of the pilot.

All three factors came into play on September 23, 1962, when during a raging gale some 500 miles west of Ireland, Flying Tiger Flight 923, a chartered military transport, lost power and was forced to set down in the North Atlantic with 76 passengers and crew aboard. The North Atlantic had become a graveyard of sunken ships and airplanes, and the pilot, Captain John Murray, was faced with daunting conditions: pitch dark night, 65 mph winds, and 20-foot waves. His aluminum aircraft, a Lockheed L-1049H Super Constellation, had a poor safety record—three others had crashed or disappeared during the preceding six months.

Fortunately, Murray was “an engineer, as well as a very experienced pilot and sailor,” says Eric Lindner, author of the definitive account of the incident, Tiger in the Sea: The Ditching of Flying Tiger 923 and the Desperate Struggle for Survival. In his book, Lindner describes how Murray’s broad expertise enabled him to land his aircraft in the Atlantic without smashing it into pieces:

Absent a significant change in the swells’ direction, velocity, and height, Murray said he intended to fly into the wind, toward the swells, and touch down between two of them. His colleagues were perplexed. The manual read: “Never land into the face of a swell or within 45 degrees of it….” Murray explained: “In almost every ditching training session, after a discussion of why it’s better to land parallel to the swells, there’d always be an old-time flying boat captain who landed his Sikorsky or Boeing into the swells.” Because Murray felt the stiff winds at sea level would cut his speed and minimize sideways drift, the Flying Tiger captain said he intended to ditch like the flying boat captains.

The impact of the landing, at 120 mph, caused the Super Constellation’s left wing to be ripped off and windows to implode. Cold ocean water mixed with aviation fuel filled the cabin. Murray—who had been unable to brace for impact because he had been steering the 72-ton aircraft—was briefly knocked unconscious when his head had slammed into the control panel.

Bleeding to a point where he was unable to see, Murray shooed his crew out of the cockpit and turned over all the passenger seats to make sure nobody was left behind as the aircraft was being evacuated. Murray was swept out to sea by a massive wave that exploded into the sinking airplane through one of the over-wing exits. During a brutal swim to the raft, he rescued a teen newlywed.

All 76 passengers and crew members had gotten out alive. Murray, acting on instinct, had returned to the cockpit to grab a flashlight before he had left the aircraft. His decision saved lives. In the blackness of the night, he used the flashlight to alert a Swiss freighter that had heard the SOS and rushed to the scene. By then only 48 survivors remained: The others had drowned, many while searching for life-rafts.

“I’ve talked with dozens of pilots, including the Air Force and Navy—everyone said the plane would’ve cracked up on impact, sunk in pieces in a few minutes, and everyone would’ve died if another pilot had been in that cockpit,” says Lindner. “That only one wing snapped off was astonishing, they all told me. That any rafts survived was also astonishing.”

Safety first

Available data on ditching incidents can vary, depending on how researchers define ditching. (Was the water landing intentional or accidental? Did the aircraft end up in the water because it landed short of the runway?) But the data regarding passenger transport jet aircraft indicates there have been only a half-dozen planned emergency water landings in the decades since Flight 923 ditched in the North Atlantic in 1962. 

Such a statistic reflects broader improvements in aviation safety. In 1970, there were six fatal airliner accidents for every million commercial flights, according to the Aviation Safety Network. In 2020, there was just one for every two million flights. The tragic mid-air collision between a helicopter and an airliner at Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport on January 30 was the first deadly crash of any kind involving a U.S. airliner since 2009.

Likewise, according to the International Air Transport Association, the overall world accident rate was 0.80 per million flights in 2023, about one accident for every 1.26 million flights. A 2024 study from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology reported the “death risk per boarding for worldwide air travelers was 1 in 13.7 million over 2018–22,” and that the fatality rate for airlines has been cut in half every decade since the 1950s. 

Each decade in aviation has brought myriad innovations in safety, including computerized control systems, more stable fuel supplies, enhanced engineering and pilot training, advanced communications, and satellite technology. But the most important improvement might have been the introduction of the jet engine and turboprop. “The turbojet engine revolutionized air travel,” says Bubb. “Before that, aircraft largely used radial engines, which were horribly inefficient when it came to fuel burn and had a lot of parts that would break.”

“The engines that we’re putting in modern-day jets and propeller-driven planes are so much more reliable than they were in the 1980s,” says Dave Montgomery, a corporate pilot and author of the 2012 book Blue Water Ditching: Training Professional Crewmembers for the Unthinkable Disaster, which he recently updated in a second edition. “They virtually never fail. They fly millions and millions of flight hours, and they are very, very reliable.”

Advances in aviation engineering and technology have continued to play a role in improving air safety, especially in regard to ditchings. Two systems in particular help identify an aircraft’s position: ADS-B (automatic dependent surveillance-broadcast) and emergency locator transmitters (ELTs). The former features advanced surveillance technology and is more precise than radar while the latter is activated by sudden impact with land or the sea. ELTs can also be turned on by pilots if they suspect their aircraft is in trouble, providing early broadcasts of its latest position.

Other electronic enhancements include the so-called “glass cockpit,” which organizes crucial flight data on computer display screens rather than using individual gauges. Also known as the electronic flight instrument system, it provides easy-to-read avionics information via LED readouts so that aviators can quickly make real-time decisions while in the air. “The computer-integrated cockpit gives a pilot so much more information—from color weather radar to the mandated ADS-B that show your position and nearby traffic to charts, terrain maps, and nearby airports to satellite radio to digital information on engine, fuel, and more,” says Cochrane, reflecting on the collective impact of these new technologies. “Troubleshooting can be performed quickly for immediate in-flight resolution or details.”

Fly-by-wire flight controls have also increased aviation safety. The system uses computers to operate the aircraft based on pilot maneuvers, replacing mechanical processes for the rudder, flaps, aileron, elevator, and engine controls. The integrated system makes constant and automatic adjustments to stabilize flight performance and improve safety.

Even with all this modern technology, things still go wrong and aircraft end up in the water. Just ask Sullenberger, the pilot of what is arguably the most famous ditching in history. On January 15, 2009, U.S. Airways Flight 1549 had just taken off from LaGuardia Airport when it encountered a bird strike and both engines died. Sullenberger quickly realized he could not glide to an airport and alerted the air traffic controller: “We’re gonna be in the Hudson.”

In a 2022 interview with Air and Space Quarterly (“On. Set. Checked,” Winter 2023), Sullenberger recalled how he tried to restart his engines using a checklist developed for aircraft at a much higher altitude. Time ran out before he could complete all the steps, and he had to find another place to land—fast. “They were at 35,000 feet and had nearly a half an hour to get through it,” he remembered. “We were at 2,700 feet and had less than three and half minutes after we lost engines, at which time we were in the water.”

Sullenberger's Airbus A320 was equipped with a ditching button that enables pilots to seal inlets below the water level to keep the aircraft floating for a longer period. (Not all aircraft have a single ditching button, but pilots can implement similar procedures as part of a ditching checklist.) Flight 1549 landed so quickly that neither Sullenberger or his first officer had time to activate the ditching button. Sully later commented that it probably wouldn’t have made a difference, since the impact tore huge holes in the fuselage that let water to flow in.

“I spent my life preparing for a challenge I never knew I would face,” Sullenberger said. “I was always trying to be more knowledgeable, more skillful, and more experienced so I would have the judgment needed to handle the unexpected.”

Following the incident, Sullenberger spent the next 10 years lobbying the FAA to implement a checklist for restarting engines at low altitude. This checklist is now included in the cockpits of all commercial airliners in the U.S.

Aftermath

Simulator training for emergency landings at sea only goes so far. “Then they pull the plug,” says Joe Klun, a Delta Air Lines captain who occasionally flies over-water routes. “You’re using the simulator and following the procedures for a ditching. Just before you hit the water, they turn it off so you don’t get a red screen. The simulators are not set up to show you what happens next.”

And what happens next is critical. Most people who die in an emergency water landing do so after the aircraft sets down, either from drowning or exposure to the elements. According to a study published in the science journal Aerospace Medicine and Human Performance: “Overall, 95 percent of all occupants survived the primary ditching event. Drowning was described as the predominant cause of death after the ditching in the NTSB’s [National Transportation and Safety Board] reports and contributed to the overall survival rate of 76 percent in our study cohort. This is consistent with previous analyses of 40 ditched aircraft from the NTSB database and the International Civil Aviation Organization between 1979 and 1989. The most common cause of injury after ditching (67 percent) was asphyxiation due to inhalation of water.”

Surviving a water landing has lead to some tough lessons learned. After nearly perishing at sea following 24 days floating in the Pacific, Rickenbacker urged the U.S. military to include fishing kits with life-rafts so airmen might not starve like he did. Such simple equipment saved the life of Louis Zamperini, made famous in Lauren Hillenbrand’s 2010 bestselling book Unbroken: A World War II Story of Survival, Resilience, and Redemption. The U.S. Army Air Forces lieutenant used hooks and line from his raft to catch fish. He and another survivor floated on the ocean for 47 days after their Consolidated B-24 Liberator bomber ditched following mechanical difficulties in 1943.

The ditching of Flying Tiger Flight 923—which led to the deaths of 28 people—also prompted reforms. “Lights on vests were soon made mandatory,” says Lindner. Also, the winds at the crash site had been so powerful that four of the five life-rafts blew away. After that, Lindner says, rafts were made reversible because the “only raft that survived was inflated upside down—all the medical supplies, flares, and fresh water were inaccessible.”

For Dave Montgomery, a lesson learned became an epiphany for him. The retired U.S. Air Force command pilot was flying a general from Belgium to Andrews Air Force Base in Maryland on a Gulfstream IV when he lost a door seal at 41,000 feet over the Atlantic. Within minutes, the aircraft depressurized, and Montgomery had to make an emergency descent to 10,000 feet to reach breathable air . 

Fortunately, he was able to guide the damaged aircraft back to a military base in England. However, the incident got him thinking: If he ever had to make an emergency water landing, would he be prepared? 

Montgomery began reading everything he could find on ditching. As a special operations pilot in the Air Force, he had experience landing amphibious airplanes on water, so he was familiar with the procedure. But what about other pilots? What did they know?

“We went out into the North Atlantic and I’ve landed on smooth seas, landed on troughs, and I’ve landed in sea chop,” he says. “Not many pilots ever get to do that in their life. That’s one of the reasons I wrote the book. Lots of guys were asking me, ‘How the hell do you land in the middle of the ocean? If there are swells, what kind of things do you think about? How do you set up an approach for landing on water?’ ”

In his book, Montgomery goes into detail about what to expect for a forced landing in deep water. He believes most pilots today are not prepared for this scenario. “Today, we fly airplanes where the engines never quit, fuel tanks don’t leak, the pressurization and electrical systems maintain their integrity,” he says. “We even have interiors that you can’t set on fire. The risk factors are not there, so we don’t do much ditching training anymore. Not like we used to.”

Montgomery speaks at countless conferences and seminars attended by pilots. He continues to remind aviators that as they fly over the world’s oceans, rivers and lakes, they need to be prepared: “History is full of airplanes that ended up in the water.” 

David Kindy is a journalist, freelance writer, and book reviewer who writes about aviation, space, military history, and other topics.

This article, originally titled “Survival Instinct,” is from the Spring 2025 issue of Air & Space Quarterly, the National Air and Space Museum's signature magazine that explores topics in aviation and space, from the earliest moments of flight to today. Explore the full issue.

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