On 4/6/2010 4:04 PM, Dimitri wrote:
> "Steve Pope" > wrote in message
> ...
>> Dimitri > wrote:
>>
>>> Large commercial planes are simply not designed for "Water Landings" yes
>>
>> Not true. They all have water landing procedures, which include
>> closing off vents on the bottom side of the airplane and
>> landing at a certain angle (generally nose-up).
>>
>> I really doubt they would certify an airliner that couldn't
>> at least nominally be expected to land in water, as well
>> as perform a dead-stick landing on land.
>>
>>
>> Steve
>
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Water_landing
>
> "The FAA does not require commercial pilots to train to ditch,
> regulating instead the distance a plane can stray from an airfield.

Note that "commercial pilot" is a different rating from that held by
airline pilots, with much lower training and experience requirements.

If anyone can cite the regulation that limits the "distance a plane can
stray from an airfield" I'd like to see it.

> <SNIP>
>
> While there have been several 'successful' (survivable) water landings
> by narrow-body and propeller-driven airliners, few commercial jets have
> ever touched down 'perfectly' on water. There has been a good deal of
> popular controversy over the efficiency of life vests and rafts. For
> example, Ralph Nader's Aviation Consumer Action Project had been quoted
> as saying that a wide body jet would “shatter like a raw egg dropped on
> pavement, killing most if not all passengers on impact, even in calm
> seas with well-trained pilots and good landing trajectories."[2]
>
> Also, in December 2002, The Economist had quoted an expert as claiming
> that "No large airliner has ever made an emergency landing on water" in
> an article that goes on to charge, "So the life jackets ... have little
> purpose other than to make passengers feel better."[3][4] This idea was
> repeated in The Economist in September 2006 in an article which reported
> that "in the history of aviation the number of wide-bodied aircraft that
> have made successful landings on water is zero."[5] "

And yet the same wikipedia article lists a number of large jet airliners
that landed on water with few fatalities.

I do wish that Ralph Nader would stick to things he understands.