Water landing

"Ditching" redirects here. For the intentional absence from school, see truancy.
A Twin Otter float plane completing a water landing

A water landing is, in the broadest sense, a landing on a body of water. Some aircraft such as floatplanes land on water as a matter of course.

The phrase "water landing" is also used as a euphemism for crash-landing into water an aircraft not designed for the purpose, an event formally termed ditching.[1] In this case, the flight crew knowingly make a controlled emergency landing on water. Ditching of commercial aircraft is a rare occurrence.

Aircraft water landings

By design

Apollo 15 capsule descends under two of three parachutes

Seaplanes, flying boats, and amphibious aircraft are designed to take off and alight on water. Alighting can be supported by a hull-shaped fuselage and/or pontoons. The availability of a long effective runway was historically important on lifting size restrictions on aircraft, and their freedom from constructed strips remains useful for transportation to lakes and other remote areas. The ability to loiter on water is also important for marine rescue operations and fire fighting. One disadvantage of water alighting is that it is dangerous in the presence of waves. Furthermore, the necessary equipment compromises the craft's aerodynamic efficiency and speed.

Early manned spacecraft launched by the United States were designed to alight on water by the splashdown method. The craft would parachute into the water, which acted as a cushion to bring the craft to a stop; the impacts were violent but survivable. Alighting over water rather than land made braking rockets unnecessary, but its disadvantages included difficult retrieval and the danger of drowning. The NASA Space Shuttle design was intended to land on a runway instead. Some future spacecraft are planning to permit water alightings (SpaceX Dragon, Boeing CST-100, etc.)

In distress

Although extremely uncommon in commercial passenger travel, small aircraft ditchings are common occurrences. According to the National Transportation Safety Board, there are about a dozen ditchings per year.[2]

General aviation

General aviation includes all fields of aviation outside of military or scheduled (commercial) flights. This classification includes small aircraft, e.g., training aircraft, airships, gliders, helicopters, and corporate aircraft, including business jets and other for-hire operations. General aviation has the highest accident and incident rate in aviation, with 16 deaths per million flight hours, compared to 0.74 deaths per million flight hours for commercial flights (North America and Europe).

Commercial aircraft

US Airways Flight 1549, ditched on the Hudson River in 2009 with all passengers surviving

The FAA does not require commercial pilots to train to ditch but airline cabin personnel must train on the evacuation process.[3] In addition, the FAA implemented rules under which circumstances (kind of operator, number of passengers, weight, route) an aircraft has to carry emergency equipment including floating devices such as life jackets and life rafts.

Ditching button on the overhead panel of an Airbus A330

Some aircraft are designed with the possibility of a water landing in mind. Airbus aircraft, for example, feature a "ditching button" which, if pressed, closes valves and openings underneath the aircraft, including the outflow valve, the air inlet for the emergency RAT, the avionics inlet, the extract valve, and the flow control valve. It is meant to slow flooding in a water landing.[4]

Passenger airplane water ditchings

Aircraft landing on water for other reasons

Aircraft also sometimes end up in water by running off the end of runways, landing in water short of the end of a runway, or even being forcibly flown into the water during suicidal/homicidal events. Twice at LaGuardia Airport, aircraft have rolled into the East River.

"Water bird" emergency helicopter landing technique

The "water bird" emergency landing is a technique developed by the Canadian Forces to safely land the Sikorsky CH-124 Sea King helicopter when one engine fails while flying over water. The emergency landing technique allows the boat-hull equipped aircraft to land on the water in a controlled fashion.[37]

Launch vehicle water landings

Beginning in 2013 and continuing into 2014 and 2015, a series of ocean water landing tests were undertaken by SpaceX as a prelude to bringing booster rockets back to the launch pad in an effort to reuse launch vehicle booster stages.[38] Seven test flights with controlled-descents have been conducted by April 2015.[39]

Prior to 2013, successful water landings of launch vehicles were not attempted, while periodic water landings of space capsules have been accomplished since 1961. The vast majority of space launch vehicles take off vertically and are destroyed on falling back to earth. Exceptions include suborbital vertical-landing vehicles (e.g., Masten Xoie or the Armadillo Aerospace' Lunar Lander Challenge vehicle), and the spaceplanes that use the vertical takeoff, horizontal landing (VTHL) approach (e.g., the Space Shuttle, or the USAF X-37) which have landing gear to enable runway landings.[40] Each vertical-takeoff spaceflight system to date has relied on expendable boosters to begin each ascent to orbital velocity. This is beginning to change.

Recent advances in private space transport, where new competition to governmental space initiatives has emerged, have included the explicit design of recoverable rocket technologies into orbital booster rockets. SpaceX has initiated and funded a multimillion-dollar program to pursue this objective, known as the reusable launch system development program.[41][42][43]

The orbital-flight version of the SpaceX design[44] was first successful at accomplishing a water landing (zero velocity and zero altitude) in April 2014 on a Falcon 9 rocket and was the first successful controlled ocean soft touchdown of a liquid-rocket-engine orbital booster.[45][46] Seven test flights with controlled-descent test over-water landings, including two with failed attempts to land on a floating landing platform, have been conducted by April 2015.[39]

References

  1. National Transportation Safety Board (December 1998). "NTSB Aviation Coding Manual". Archived from the original on 4 June 2011. Retrieved 29 January 2012.
  2. Bertorelli, Paul (1999). "Ditching Myths Torpedoed!". Retrieved 17 January 2010.
  3. CFR 14 Part 121 Appendix D – Criteria for Demonstration of Emergency Evacuation Procedures Under §121.291
  4. "Airbus Overhead Panel" (PDF). Data. smartcockpit.com. Retrieved 9 October 2011.
  5. AviationSafety.net Accident Description VH-DHA Retrieved 2 August 2010
  6. Loss of Drover VH-DHA Retrieved 2 August 2007
  7. Accident description Air France Flight 152
  8. Kebabjian, Richard. "1956/1956-27.htm". PlaneCrashInfo.com. Retrieved 26 June 2006.
  9. Hokom, Wayne. "Ditch and rescue". Coast Guard stories. Jack's Joint. Retrieved 26 June 2006.
  10. "Aviation Safety Network: N6923C". Flying Tiger Line Pilots Association. Retrieved 3 February 2014.
  11. "Accident Details". PlaneCrashInfo.com. Retrieved 3 February 2014.
  12. Born Again Irish by O'Caruso
  13. Aircraft Accident Report: Douglas DC-7C, N285 Northwest Airlines, Inc. Ditching in Sitka Sound, Alaska October 22, 1962. Washington, DC: Civil Aeronautics Board. 19 September 1963. p. 1.
  14. "DC-7 Ditches In Sea Near Sitka; All Safe". The Seattle Daily Times. 22 October 1962.
  15. 1 2 Sims, Ward T. (23 October 1962). "102 Saved As Plane Ditches". Seattle Post Intelligencer.
  16. Aircraft Accident Report: Douglas DC-7C, N285 Northwest Airlines, Inc. Ditching in Sitka Sound, Alaska October 22, 1962. Washington, DC: Civil Aeronautics Board. 19 September 1963. p. 5.
  17. AirSafe.com (28 March 2002). "Jet Airliner Ditching Events". Retrieved 26 June 2006.
  18. Aviation Safety Network. "McDonnell Douglas DC-9-33CF N935F – St. Croix, Virgin Islands". Retrieved 26 June 2006.
  19. "Collision with water – Piper PA31-350 Chieftain, VH-MZK, Spencer Gulf, S.A, 31 May 2000". Australian Transport Safety Bureau. 19 December 2001.
  20. Garuda Indonesia Fl421 at AirDisaster.com retrieved 2 November 2007.
  21. Mark V. Rosenker. "NTSB Safety Recommendation" (PDF).
  22. Robbins, Liz (15 January 2009). "Jet Ditches in Hudson; All Are Said Safe". The New York Times. The New York Times Company. Retrieved 15 January 2009.
  23. ASN Aircraft accident Britten-Norman BN-2A-26 Islander PJ-SUN Bonaire-Flamingo International Airport (BON)
  24. Hradecky, Simon (7 June 2011). "Accident: Solenta AN26 near Libreville on Jun 6th 2011, ditched in the sea". The Aviation Herald. Retrieved 5 September 2011.
  25. Hradecky, Simon. "Accident: Angara AN24 at Nizhnevartovsk on Jul 11th 2011, water landing after engine fire". The Aviation Herald. Retrieved 11 July 2011.
  26. "An-24 crash in Tomsk region now claims 7 victims". Lenta.Ru (in Russian). Lenta.Ru. 11 July 2011.
  27. "Lion Air Passenger Plane Crashes in Bali". 13 April 2013.
  28. Aviation Safety Net. "ST-APY". Retrieved 17 March 2009.
  29. Aviation Safety Network. "Boeing 747–428 F-GITA Papeete-Faaa Airport (PPT), Tahiti".
  30. Aviation Safety Network. "Boeing 747–409 B-165 – Hong Kong-Kai Tak International Airport (HKG)". Retrieved 26 June 2006.
  31. Smith, Patrick (2002). "Ask the pilot #4: Do seat cushions actually save lives?". Salon.com. Retrieved 28 June 2006.
  32. Accident Database: Accident Synopsis 02091982
  33. Stokes, Henry Scott. "COCKPIT FIGHT REPORTED ON JET THAT CRASHED IN TOKYO," The New York Times. 14 February 1982. Retrieved on 10 November 2011.
  34. "Troubled Pilot". Time. 1 March 1982. Retrieved 10 November 2011.
  35. World Airways, Inc., Flight 30H, McDonnell Douglas DC-10-30CF, N113WA, Boston-Logan Int'l Airport, Boston, Massachusetts, 23 Jan. 1982 (Revised) (AAR-85-06) Aircraft accident report by the U.S. National Transportation Safety Board, adopted 10 July 1985.
  36. Aircraft Accident Report AAR-78-13 (PDF)
  37. Prince performs 'waterbird' landing, but what is it?
  38. Boyle, Alan (18 April 2014). "Cargo Launch and Rocket Test Add Up to 'Happy Day' for SpaceX". NBC News. Retrieved 20 April 2014.
  39. 1 2 Bergin, Chris (April 3, 2015). "SpaceX preparing for a busy season of missions and test milestones". NASASpaceFlight.com. Retrieved April 26, 2015.
  40. Hanlon, Michael (2013-06-11). "Roll up for the Red Planet". The Telegraph. Retrieved 2013-10-26. the space race is flaring back into life, and it's not massive institutions such as NASA that are in the running. The old view that human space flight is so complex, difficult and expensive that only huge government agencies could hope to accomplish it is being disproved by a new breed of flamboyant space privateers, who are planning to send humans out beyond the Earth's orbit for the first time since 1972.
  41. Foust, Jeff (2013-10-18). "SpaceX wrapping up Falcon 9 second stage investigation as it moves on from Grasshopper". NewSpace Journal. Retrieved 2013-10-26.
  42. Klotz, Irene (2013-10-17). "SpaceX Retires Grasshopper, New Test Rig To Fly in December". Space News. Retrieved 2013-10-26.
  43. Leone, Dan (2013-05-13). "SpaceX Leases Pad in New Mexico for Next Grasshopper Tests". SpaceNews. Retrieved 2013-08-03.
  44. "Landing Legs". SpaceX News. 2013-04-12. Retrieved 2013-08-02. The Falcon Heavy first stage center core and boosters each carry landing legs, which will land each core safely on Earth after takeoff. After the side boosters separate, the center engine in each will burn to control the booster’s trajectory safely away from the rocket. The legs will then deploy as the boosters turn back to Earth, landing each softly on the ground. The center core will continue to fire until stage separation, after which its legs will deploy and land it back on Earth as well. The landing legs are made of state-of-the-art carbon fiber with aluminum honeycomb. The four legs stow along the sides of each core during liftoff and later extend outward and down for landing.
  45. Belfiore, Michael (22 April 2014). "SpaceX Brings a Booster Safely Back to Earth". MIT Technology Review. Retrieved 3 July 2014.
  46. Norris, Guy (28 April 2014). "SpaceX Plans For Multiple Reusable Booster Tests". Aviation Week. Retrieved 3 July 2014.

Further reading

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Water landings.
This article is issued from Wikipedia - version of the 10/23/2016. The text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution/Share Alike but additional terms may apply for the media files.