"SteveB" wrote:


I reread it, and got confused myself. I meant to say "All the films I have
seen of previous ditchings, the films look like KERSPLAT, and a cartwheel or
a spin, or breaking up." I meant to say that I had never seen a plane come
in like that one did, and come to a stop from evenly skidding on water. All
the other ones I had seen had a violent ending from dragging a wing, or just
something that interrupted the sliding motion. One would imagine that a
plane could come in and just skid to a stop on that smooth water.
Apparently, that rarely happens. Water is hard when you hit it at a fairly
good speed. BTDT.

Hope that clarifies it.

Sure does. Yes, most ditchings turn out badly. This is especially true for
fixed gear planes and planes with planes with underwing engines like the A320.
The reason is that the gear or engines catch the water at high speed. I'm sure
that the fairly violent turn that you can see at the end of the ditching videos
is a result of the left engine digging into the water.

Ditchings are something that are taught, but not practiced in flight school for
obvious reasons. My comments about the aircraft handling being routine don't
diminish the fact that the pilot did everything right. He put the plane over
the water in a very nose high, wings level attitude. Probably at the lowest
speed he could manage. He held the nose up as long as he could. All that with
enough adrenaline in his system to fill the Hudson.

After that, it was mostly luck. The Hudson was fairly smooth. He had the
current with him and he managed not to catch an engine until he had bled off
most of his speed. -- Doug