Ditching

An easy way to avoid the risk of ditching is to not fly over water. The rest of us need to plan ahead.

Headset, kneeboard—seat belt cutter? A flight instructor from Seattle, Washington, has added the latter to his must-haves when he flies, after he experienced an uncommanded loss of engine power and ended up putting the airplane into the water in West Seattle.

According to the National Business Aviation Association (NBAA), there are about 2,700 flights that cross the world’s oceans every day. When you’re halfway between continents and your airplane suffers an in-flight emergency, sometimes the only option is to ditch in the angry ocean below. Surviving this kind of “blue water ditching” was the subject of […]