Forum: aviation.stackexchange.com
Tags: <safety><accidents><ditching>
Title: Has a commercial airliner ever crash-landed in an ocean?
Question: They have rafts and life jackets on board and before takeoff, passengers are explained how to use that equipment, but have any evacuations ever happened successfully?

Answers:
sents: text: Yes, commercial airplanes have landed or crash landed in water many times.
text: If I am not mistaken, you are asking about scenarios when the on-board life jackets and life raft are used.
text: Here is a list of water landings.
text: Examples when a life raft was used are (in addition to ratchet freak's mentions ): On 22 October 1962, a Northwest Airlines DC-7C with 7 crew and 95 passengers made a successful water landing in Sitka Sound. ...
text: The plane stayed afloat for 24 minutes after coming to rest in the water, giving the occupants ample time to evacuate into life-rafts.
text: In 1993, China Airlines Flight 605 , a Boeing 747–409, ended up in water after it overran runway 13 ...
text: All of the 396 occupants donned life-vests, boarded the eight slide/rafts and no fatalities resulted.
answer_details: author: aviation.stackexchange.com/users/65/Farhan
score: 27
sents: text: Yes - it happened in 2009 in the Hudson (well it's a river), and it happened in 1996 Ethiopian Airlines Flight 961 as far as I know.
answer_details: author: aviation.stackexchange.com/users/4390/benedict benoit
score: 16
sents: text: Yes.
text: A Cathay Pacific DC-4 (technically a C-54) was shot down by Chinese fighters off the coast of Hainan island on 23 July 1954.
text: With his rudder and right aileron shot off, fuel tanks on fire, and the #4 engine down, the pilot ditched into the ocean.
text: Of the 19 people on board (including 3 flight crew and 3 cabin crew,) 9 died either from bullets or the ditching into the ocean.
text: The remaining 10 floated in the water for a while and then inflated and boarded one of the rafts.
text: The passengers remained on board the raft for several hours until a USAF SA-16 Albatross flying boat was finally able to find a spot were it could land on the rough seas, then taxied to the raft and pulled everyone on board before taking off and flying to Hong Kong.
text: A passenger who had been badly injured died en route to Hong Kong.
text: The remaining 9 people survived.
answer_details: author: aviation.stackexchange.com/users/755/reirab
score: 5
sents: text: Yes there have been several such instances.
text: To name a few, some of which were captured on camera: Ethiopian Airlines Flight 961.
text: You can see the actual crash landing video here .
text: 125 of the 175 passengers and crew on board died.
text: US Airways flight 1549.
text: The video was caught on a cctv video .
text: All passengers and crew were safe.
text: Tuninter Flight 1153.
text: 23 out of 39 survived.
text: No film exists but it was dramatized in a Mayday episode here .
text: There have been many other evacuations, some successful and some not so successful.
text: You can get a detailed list here .
answer_details: author: aviation.stackexchange.com/users/189/Pranav
score: 3
sents: text: I'm not sure if this fits in with "commercial airline", but there was also a Cessna 208 "Grand Caravan" that crashed just off the coast of Kalaupapa, Molokai, Hawaii about a year ago on December 11, 2013.
text: It made an emergency landing into the Pacific Ocean after the engine failed just after take off.
text: The aircraft was chartered by Makani Kai Air to deliver passengers from Kalaupapa to Honolulu .
text: One person (a state health department director) was killed in the crash.
text: The crash was also captured on video with a GoPro camera by one of the passengers.
answer_details: author: aviation.stackexchange.com/users/892/ub3rst4r
score: 2
sents: text: One more for you: an SAS DC-8 crash landed in Santa Monica bay in January of 1969.
text: Most of the crew and passengers survived, using the on-board life rafts.
text: There were some issues as two of the rafts were punctured by debris.
text: The survivors (30 out of 45 aboard) were rescued after about an hour.
text: The cause was controlled flight into terrain resulting from flight crew failures and a series of issues including an inoperative nose gear light which distracted the crew.
text: The tail struck first and broke off, sinking immediately.
text: My dad had been a purser for the airline in the late 1940s
text: and I remember him telling me that one of the victims sitting in the crew seats in the tail was an old friend with whom he had flown.
text: My dad was pretty upset to lose a friend this way.
answer_details: author: aviation.stackexchange.com/users/3211/Peter Hansen
score: 2
sents: text: ALM Antillean Airlines Flight 980 was a flight scheduled to fly from John F. Kennedy International Airport in New York City to Princess Juliana International Airport in St. Maarten, Netherlands Antilles, on 2 May 1970.
text: After several unsuccessful landing attempts, the aircraft's fuel was exhausted and it made a forced water landing (ditching) in the Caribbean Sea 48 km (30 miles) off St. Croix, with 23 fatalities and 40 survivors.
text: The accident is one of a small number of intentional water ditchings of jet airliners
answer_details: author: aviation.stackexchange.com/users/30710/GVFlygirl
score: 1
sents: text: Pan am flight 6 often mistakenly called flight 943 crashed in the Pacific Ocean half way between Honolulu and San Francisco.
text: All 24 passengers and 7 crew members were rescued by the coast guard and survived.
text: The crew members on the pontchartrain are true heroes.
text: My father was on of them.
text: The incident happened October 15th 1956.
text: They lost 2 of their 4 engines around 3:00 a.m. they flew circles to burn off fuel and wait for daylight.
text: They hit the water at 8:15
text: a.m.. the plane split in half but Coasties were there within minutes.
answer_details: author: aviation.stackexchange.com/users/34569/Jerry
score: 1

Summary of the answers:
Commercial airplanes have landed or crash landed in water many times.  It happened in  2009 in the Hudson  (well it's a river), and it happened in 1996  Ethiopian Airlines Flight 961. A  Cathay Pacific DC-4 (technically a C-54) was shot down by Chinese fighters  off the coast of Hainan island on 23 July 1954. Pan am flight 6 often mistakenly called flight 943 crashed in the Pacific Ocean half way between Honolulu and San Francisco.
There have been multiple instances of commercial aircraft landing or crash-landing on water. Examples include the 1996  Ethiopian Airlines Flight 961, a SAS DC-8 in Santa Monica bay in 1969 and Pan Am flight 6 in the Pacific Ocean. A Cathay Pacific DC-4 was also shot down by Chinese fighters in 1954 and a Cessna 208 "Grand Caravan"  crashed close to Hawaii in 2013.