Water Landing

"Emergency water landing, 600 miles per hour. Blank faces -- calm as Hindu cows." -- Tyler Durden (Fight Club)

This quote started me thinking about how ridiculous it is that the seat cushions can be used as flotation devices. Ralph Nader commissioned a study of wide body jet water landings. Such a landing has never happened, so no practical proof exists. Their research seemed to indicate the jet would "shatter like a raw egg" killing most passengers on impact. I guess 'most' indicates someone might survive, and that someone would want floating seat cushions if they managed to escape the wreckage. I basically took this to confirm my suspicions that it was a huge amount of effort for the off chance that one guy is going to make it.

There are a few things that I did not consider. A number of plane accidents include jets that roll off the runway into the water. Everyone basically survives, and the flotation devices are super handy for making it the 100 ft to shore. I guess the Velcro seat is warranted.

I then discovered that 90% of the planes I fly on are not 'wide body' jets. A wide body jet is a plane that contains more than 6 seats to a row or two or more walking aisles. Most jets are narrow-body planes with 4 or 5 seats to a row. There have been a number of water landings, or ditching, with these smaller planes. The most notable is Ethiopian flight 961, because it was caught on tape.



52 people survived out of 175. It's important to note that a number of passengers inflated their life vests before exiting the plane and became trapped. While the seat cushion can be useful, in at least this one case, those foam seats wouldn't help you at all.