So much for grand design. Airplanes are designed to stay in the air and to land on solid ground. That can be a problem if you do most of your flying over lakes or oceans. Hutch said he knew for a fact that if you tried to ditch a B-24 in the drink you'd better be prepared to meet your maker because the airplane would just crack apart like a dropped egg upon contact with the water's surface. Crew members of B-24s, though, wore parachutes, so they had options other than trying to punch a hole into the sea.
Fighter pilots have the same option.
A veteran F-16 pilot stationed at Sheppard told me that you don't even think about trying to ride a jet down onto a body of water. If it appears that taking a dive into the drink is inevitable, the pilot yanks the handle and ejects. At least then he's got a chance to survive. Hutch is familiar with older model spy planes, and he said in those early versions the crew members didn't wear parachutes because space was too precious and was needed for equipment. It's my understanding that the crew aboard the spy plane that recently landed in China didn't have parachutes, either.