aviation Aviation includes the activities surrounding mechanical flight and the aircraft industry. ''Aircraft'' includes fixed-wing and rotary-wing types, morphable wings, wing-less lifting bodies, as well as lighter-than-air craft such as hot air ...

, a water landing is, in the broadest sense, an aircraft landing on a body of water.

Seaplane A seaplane is a powered fixed-wing aircraft capable of takeoff, taking off and water landing, landing (alighting) on water.Gunston, "The Cambridge Aerospace Dictionary", 2009. Seaplanes are usually divided into two categories based on their tec ...

s, such as

floatplane A floatplane is a type of seaplane with one or more slender floats mounted under the fuselage to provide buoyancy. By contrast, a flying boat uses its fuselage for buoyancy. Either type of seaplane may also have landing gear suitable for land, ...

s and

flying boat A flying boat is a type of fixed-winged seaplane with a hull, allowing it to land on water. It differs from a floatplane in that a flying boat's fuselage is purpose-designed for floatation and contains a hull, while floatplanes rely on fusela ...

s, land on water as a normal operation. Ditching is a controlled emergency landing on the water surface in an aircraft not designed for the purpose, a very rare occurrence. Controlled flight into the surface and uncontrolled flight ending in a body of water (including a runway excursion into water) are generally not considered water landings or ditching.

Aircraft water landings

By design

s, and

amphibious aircraft An amphibious aircraft or amphibian is an aircraft (typically fixed-wing) that can take off and land on both solid ground and water, though amphibious helicopters do exist as well. Fixed-wing amphibious aircraft are seaplanes ( flying boats ...

are designed to take off and alight on water. Alighting can be supported by a hull-shaped

fuselage The fuselage (; from the French ''fuselé'' "spindle-shaped") is an aircraft's main body section. It holds crew, passengers, or cargo. In single-engine aircraft, it will usually contain an engine as well, although in some amphibious aircraft t ...

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 Firefighting is the act of extinguishing or preventing the spread of unwanted fires from threatening human lives and destroying property and the environment. A person who engages in firefighting is known as a firefighter. Firefighters typicall ...

. One disadvantage of water alighting is that it is dangerous in the presence of

waves Waves most often refers to: *Waves, oscillations accompanied by a transfer of energy that travel through space or mass. * Wind waves, surface waves that occur on the free surface of bodies of water. Waves may also refer to: Music * Waves (ban ...

. Furthermore, the necessary equipment compromises the craft's aerodynamic efficiency and speed. Early crewed

spacecraft A spacecraft is a vehicle or machine designed to fly in outer space. A type of artificial satellite, spacecraft are used for a variety of purposes, including communications, Earth observation, meteorology, navigation, space colonization, p ...

launched by the United States were designed to alight on water by the splashdown method. The craft would

parachute A parachute is a device used to slow the motion of an object through an atmosphere by creating drag or, in a ram-air parachute, aerodynamic lift. A major application is to support people, for recreation or as a safety device for aviators, who ...

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 rocket A retrorocket (short for ''retrograde rocket'') is a rocket engine providing thrust opposing the motion of a vehicle, thereby causing it to decelerate. They have mostly been used in spacecraft, with more limited use in short-runway aircraft land ...

s unnecessary, but its disadvantages included difficult retrieval and the danger of drowning. The NASA

Space Shuttle The Space Shuttle is a retired, partially reusable low Earth orbital spacecraft system operated from 1981 to 2011 by the U.S. National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) as part of the Space Shuttle program. Its official program na ...

design was intended to land on a

runway According to the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO), a runway is a "defined rectangular area on a land aerodrome prepared for the landing and takeoff of aircraft". Runways may be a man-made surface (often asphalt concrete, as ...

instead. Since 2020 the SpaceX Dragon has used water landings. The Boeing

CST-100 The Boeing CST-100 Starliner
is a class of two partially

is designed to do likewise.

In distress

While ditching is extremely uncommon in commercial passenger travel, small aircraft tend to ditch slightly more often because they usually have only one engine and their systems have fewer redundancies. According to the

National Transportation Safety Board The National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) is an independent U.S. government investigative agency responsible for civil transportation accident investigation. In this role, the NTSB investigates and reports on aviation accidents and incid ...

, there are about a dozen ditchings per year.

General aviation

General aviation General aviation (GA) is defined by the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) as all civil aviation aircraft operations with the exception of commercial air transport or aerial work, which is defined as specialized aviation services ...

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 A business jet, private jet, or bizjet is a jet aircraft designed for transporting small groups of people. Business jets may be adapted for other roles, such as the evacuation of casualties or express parcel deliveries, and some are used by pub ...

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 (N106US) after crashing into the Hudson River (crop 1)

The

FAA The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) is the largest transportation agency of the U.S. government and regulates all aspects of civil aviation in the country as well as over surrounding international waters. Its powers include air traffic m ...

does not require commercial pilots to train to ditch but airline cabin personnel must train on the evacuation process. 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 jacket A personal flotation device (PFD; also referred to as a life jacket, life preserver, life belt, Mae West, life vest, life saver, cork jacket, buoyancy aid or flotation suit) is a flotation device in the form of a vest or suite that is worn by a ...

s and life rafts. A330 Ditching Button

Some aircraft are designed with the possibility of a water landing in mind.

Airbus Airbus SE (; ; ; ) is a European Multinational corporation, multinational aerospace corporation. Airbus designs, manufactures and sells civil and military aerospace manufacturer, aerospace products worldwide and manufactures aircraft througho ...

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 Rats are various medium-sized, long-tailed rodents. Species of rats are found throughout the order Rodentia, but stereotypical rats are found in the genus ''Rattus''. Other rat genera include ''Neotoma'' ( pack rats), ''Bandicota'' (bandicoot ...

, the avionics inlet, the extract valve, and the flow control valve. It is meant to slow flooding in a water landing.

Airplane water ditchings

Aircraft landing on water for other reasons

Passengers being rescued from P2-PXE after it crashed on 28 September 2018

Aircraft also sometimes end up in water by running off the ends 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, an aircraft have rolled into the

East River The East River is a saltwater tidal estuary in New York City. The waterway, which is actually not a river despite its name, connects Upper New York Bay on its south end to Long Island Sound on its north end. It separates the borough of Queens ...

(

USAir Flight 5050 USAir Flight 5050 was a passenger flight that crashed on takeoff from LaGuardia Airport in Queens, New York. As the plane took off from LaGuardia's runway 31, the plane drifted to the left. After hearing a loud bang, the pilots attempted to a ...

and USAir Flight 405). * 5 September 1954: KLM Flight 633, a Lockheed L-1049C-55-81 Super Constellation, suffered a re-extension of the landing gear shortly after taking off from Shannon Airport, which the flight crew was not aware. This caused the plane to descend and ditch into the

River Shannon The River Shannon ( ga, Abhainn na Sionainne, ', '), at in length, is the longest river in the British Isles. It drains the Shannon River Basin, which has an area of , – approximately one fifth of the area of the island of Ireland. The Shan ...

. 28 of the 56 people on board survived. * * 13 January 1969: Scandinavian Airlines System Flight 933, a

McDonnell Douglas DC-8-62 The Douglas DC-8 (sometimes McDonnell Douglas DC-8) is a long-range Narrow-body aircraft, narrow-body airliner built by the American Douglas Aircraft Company. After losing the May 1954 US Air Force tanker competition to the Boeing KC-135, Dou ...

, ditched in

Santa Monica Bay Santa Monica Bay is a bight (geography), bight of the Pacific Ocean in Southern California, United States. Its boundaries are slightly ambiguous, but it is generally considered to be the part of the Pacific within an imaginary line drawn betwe ...

while on approach to runway 07R of

Los Angeles International Airport Los Angeles International Airport , commonly referred to as LAX (with each letter pronounced individually), is the primary international airport serving Los Angeles, California and its surrounding metropolitan area. LAX is located in the W ...

California California is a U.S. state, state in the Western United States, located along the West Coast of the United States, Pacific Coast. With nearly 39.2million residents across a total area of approximately , it is the List of states and territori ...

. Out of the 45 people on board the plane, 4 drowned, 11 are missing and presumed dead, 17 were injured, and 13 sustained no injuries. * * * * * * 28 February 1984: Scandinavian Airlines System Flight 901, a

McDonnell Douglas DC-10-30 The McDonnell Douglas DC-10 is an American trijet wide-body aircraft manufactured by McDonnell Douglas. The DC-10 was intended to succeed the DC-8 for long- range flights. It first flew on August 29, 1970; it was introduced on August 5, 1971 ...

, overran the runway shortly after landing at John F. Kennedy International Airport and ended up with its nose in shallow water. All 177 occupants on board survived with 12 of them sustaining injuries. * * 31 August 1988: CAAC Flight 301, a Hawker Siddeley Trident, overran the runway at

Kai Tak international Airport Kai Tak Airport was the international airport of Hong Kong from 1925 until 1998. Officially known as Hong Kong International Airport from 1954 to 6 July 1998, it is often referred to as Hong Kong International Airport, Kai Tak, or simply Ka ...

and ended up in Kowloon Bay, breaking into two pieces. 7 of the 89 occupants on board perished and 15 others sustained injuries. * 26 September 1988: Aerolineas Argentinas Flight 648, a

Boeing 737 The Boeing 737 is a narrow-body aircraft produced by Boeing at its Renton Factory in Washington. Developed to supplement the Boeing 727 on short and thin routes, the twinjet retains the 707 fuselage width and six abreast seating with two un ...

, landed hard and overran the runway at Ushuaia Airport and ended up in shallow water. All 62 people aboard survived. * * * * * * * * 3 May 2019: Miami Air International Flight 293, a Boeing 737-800, hydroplaned and experienced a runway excursion upon landing at

Naval Air Station Jacksonville Naval Air Station Jacksonville (NAS Jacksonville) is a large naval air station located approximately eight miles (13 km) south of the central business district of Jacksonville, Florida, United States., effective 2007-10-25 Location NAS Jack ...

. The airplane came to rest in the shallow waters of

St. Johns River The St. Johns River ( es, Río San Juan) is the longest river in the U.S. state of Florida and its most significant one for commercial and recreational use. At long, it flows north and winds through or borders twelve counties. The drop in eleva ...

, sustaining substantial damage. All 143 passengers and crew on board the plane survived, although twenty-one people on board suffered minor injuries.

Military aircraft

A limited number of pre-World War II military aircraft, such as the Grumman F4F Wildcat and Douglas TBD Devastator, were equipped with flotation bags that kept them on the surface in the event of a ditching. The "water bird" emergency landing is a technique developed by the

Canadian Forces } The Canadian Armed Forces (CAF; french: Forces armées canadiennes, ''FAC'') are the unified military forces of Canada, including sea, land, and air elements referred to as the Royal Canadian Navy, Canadian Army, and Royal Canadian Air Force. ...

to safely land the

Sikorsky CH-124 Sea King The Sikorsky CH-124 Sea King is a twin-engined anti-submarine warfare (ASW) helicopter designed for shipboard use by Canadian naval forces, based on the US Navy's SH-3. It served with the Royal Canadian Navy (RCN) and Canadian Armed Forces fr ...

helicopter if 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.Prince performs 'waterbird' landing, but what is it?

Launch vehicle water landings

Beginning in 2013 and continuing into 2014 and 2015, a series of ocean water landing tests were undertaken by

SpaceX Space Exploration Technologies Corp. (SpaceX) is an American spacecraft manufacturer, launcher, and a satellite communications corporation headquartered in Hawthorne, California. It was founded in 2002 by Elon Musk with the stated goal of ...

as a prelude to bringing booster rockets back to the launch pad in an effort to

reuse Reuse is the action or practice of using an item, whether for its original purpose (conventional reuse) or to fulfill a different function ( creative reuse or repurposing). It should be distinguished from recycling, which is the breaking down of u ...

launch vehicle A launch vehicle or carrier rocket is a rocket designed to carry a payload (spacecraft or satellites) from the Earth's surface to outer space. Most launch vehicles operate from a launch pad, launch pads, supported by a missile launch contro ...

booster stages. Seven test flights with controlled-descents have been conducted by April 2015. Prior to 2013, successful water landings of launch vehicles were not attempted, while periodic water landings of

space capsule A space capsule is an often-crewed spacecraft that uses a blunt-body reentry capsule to reenter the Earth's atmosphere without wings. Capsules are distinguished from other satellites primarily by the ability to survive reentry and return a payl ...

s have been accomplished since 1961. The vast majority of

space Space is the boundless three-dimensional extent in which objects and events have relative position and direction. In classical physics, physical space is often conceived in three linear dimensions, although modern physicists usually consider ...

launch vehicles take off vertically and are destroyed on falling back to earth. Exceptions include

suborbital A sub-orbital spaceflight is a spaceflight in which the spacecraft reaches outer space, but its trajectory intersects the atmosphere or surface of the gravitating body from which it was launched, so that it will not complete one orbital r ...

vertical-landing vehicles (e.g., Masten Xoie or the Armadillo Aerospace' Lunar Lander Challenge vehicle), and the

spaceplane A spaceplane is a vehicle that can fly and glide like an aircraft in Earth's atmosphere and maneuver like a spacecraft in outer space. To do so, spaceplanes must incorporate features of both aircraft and spacecraft. Orbital spaceplanes ten ...

s that use the '' vertical takeoff, horizontal landing'' (VTHL) approach (e.g., the

, or the USAF

X-37 The Boeing X-37, also known as the Orbital Test Vehicle (OTV), is a reusable robotic spacecraft. It is boosted into space by a launch vehicle, then re-enters Earth's atmosphere and lands as a spaceplane. The X-37 is operated by the United State ...

) which have

landing gear Landing gear is the undercarriage of an aircraft or spacecraft that is used for takeoff or landing. For aircraft it is generally needed for both. It was also formerly called ''alighting gear'' by some manufacturers, such as the Glenn L. Martin ...

to enable runway landings. Each vertical-takeoff spaceflight system to date has relied on

expendable ''Expendable'' is a science fiction novel by the Canadian author James Alan Gardner, published in 1997 by HarperCollins Publishers under its various imprints.Avon Books; HarperCollins Canada; SFBC/AvoNova. Paperback edition 1997, Eos Books. It i ...

boosters to begin each ascent to orbital velocity. This is beginning to change. Recent advances in

private Private or privates may refer to: Music * " In Private", by Dusty Springfield from the 1990 album ''Reputation'' * Private (band), a Denmark-based band * "Private" (Ryōko Hirosue song), from the 1999 album ''Private'', written and also recorde ...

space transport, where

new New is an adjective referring to something recently made, discovered, or created. New or NEW may refer to: Music * New, singer of K-pop group The Boyz Albums and EPs * ''New'' (album), by Paul McCartney, 2013 * ''New'' (EP), by Regurgitator, ...

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. The orbital-flight version of the SpaceX design was first successful at accomplishing a water landing (zero velocity and zero altitude) in April 2014 on a

Falcon 9 rocket Falcon 9 is a partially reusable medium lift launch vehicle that can carry cargo and crew into Earth orbit, produced by American aerospace company SpaceX. The rocket has two stages. The first (booster) stage carries the second stage and payl ...

and was the first successful controlled ocean soft touchdown of a liquid-rocket-engine orbital booster. Seven test flights with controlled-descent test over-water landings, including two with failed attempts to land on a

floating landing platform A floating launch vehicle operations platform is a marine vessel used for launch or landing operations of an orbital launch vehicle by a launch service provider: putting satellites into orbit around Earth or another celestial body, or recovering ...

, have been conducted by April 2015.