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 A body of water or waterbody (often spelled water body) is any significant accumulation of water on the surface of Earth or another planet. The term most often refers to oceans, seas, and lakes, but it includes smaller pools of water such a ...

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

s, such as floatplanes and flying boats, land on water as a normal operation. Ditching is a controlled

emergency landing An emergency landing is a premature landing made by an aircraft in response to an emergency involving an imminent or ongoing threat to the safety and operation of the aircraft, or involving a sudden need for a passenger or crew on board to term ...

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 A runway excursion is a runway safety incident where an aircraft makes an inappropriate exit from the runway. Runway excursions include runway overruns, where an aircraft is unable to stop before it reaches the end of the runway. Runway excursion ...

into water) are generally not considered water landings or ditching.

Aircraft water landings

By design

s, flying boats, and amphibious aircraft 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 (band) ...

. 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 Splashdown is the method of landing a spacecraft by parachute in a body of water. It was used by crewed American space capsules prior to the Space Shuttle program, by SpaceX Dragon and Dragon 2 capsules and by NASA's Orion Multipurpose Crew ...

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 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 American private space transportation company SpaceX has developed and produced several spacecraft named Dragon. The first family member, now referred to as Dragon 1, flew 23 cargo missions to the ISS between 2010 and 2020 before being retired ...

has used water landings. The Boeing

CST-100 The Boeing CST-100 Starliner
is a class of two partially National Transportation Safety Board, 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 pu ...

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 raft A lifeboat or liferaft is a small, rigid or inflatable boat carried for emergency evacuation in the event of a disaster aboard a ship. Lifeboat drills are required by law on larger commercial ships. Rafts ( liferafts) are also used. In the m ...

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

Airbus Airbus SE (; ; ; ) is a European multinational aerospace corporation. Airbus designs, manufactures and sells civil and military aerospace products worldwide and manufactures aircraft throughout the world. The company has three divisions: ' ...

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.

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 LaGuardia Airport is a civil airport in East Elmhurst, Queens, New York City. Covering , the facility was established in 1929 and began operating as a public airport in 1939. It is named after former New York City mayor Fiorello La Guardia ...

, 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 Quee ...

( USAir Flight 5050 and

USAir Flight 405 USAir Flight 405 was a regularly scheduled domestic passenger flight between LaGuardia Airport in Queens, New York City, New York, and Cleveland, Ohio. On March 22, 1992, a USAir Fokker F28, registration flying the route, crashed in poor weat ...

). * 5 September 1954:

KLM Flight 633 KLM Flight 633 was a passenger flight from Amsterdam to New York City. On 5 September 1954, immediately after takeoff from Shannon Airport, the Super Constellation Triton ditched on a mudbank in the River Shannon. 28 people were killed in the acc ...

, a Lockheed L-1049C-55-81 Super Constellation, suffered a re-extension of the landing gear shortly after taking off from

Shannon Airport Shannon Airport ( ga, Aerfort na Sionainne) is an international airport located in County Clare in the Republic of Ireland. It is adjacent to the Shannon Estuary and lies halfway between Ennis and Limerick. The airport is the third busiest ai ...

, which the flight crew was not aware. This caused the plane to descend and ditch into the River Shannon. 28 of the 56 people on board survived. * * 13 January 1969:

Scandinavian Airlines System Flight 933 Scandinavian Airlines System Flight 933 was a scheduled international flight from Denmark to the United States that on January 13, 1969, crashed into Santa Monica Bay at 19:21, approximately west of Los Angeles International Airport (LAX) in Ca ...

, 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 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 between Point Dume, in ...

while on approach to runway 07R of Los Angeles International Airport,

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 Scandinavian Airlines System Flight 901, was a scheduled international flight operated by the Scandinavian Airlines, Scandinavian Airlines System, that overran the runway at its destination at John F. Kennedy International Airport on February 28 ...

, 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 John F. Kennedy International Airport (colloquially referred to as JFK Airport, Kennedy Airport, New York-JFK, or simply JFK) is the main international airport serving New York City. The airport is the busiest of the seven airports in the Avia ...

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 CAAC Flight 301, a Hawker Siddeley Trident operated by CAAC Guangzhou Regional Administration (now China Southern Airlines) from Guangzhou Baiyun to Hong Kong Kai Tak, ran off the runway in Hong Kong on 31 August 1988 after clipping approach l ...

, a

Hawker Siddeley Trident The Hawker Siddeley HS-121 Trident (originally the de Havilland DH.121 and briefly the Airco DH.121) is a British airliner produced by Hawker Siddeley. In 1957, de Havilland proposed its DH.121 trijet design to a British European Airways (BEA ...

, 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 Kowloon Bay is a body of water within Victoria Harbour and an area within Kowloon, Hong Kong. The bay is located at the east of the Kowloon Peninsula and north of Hong Kong Island. It is the eastern portion of Victoria Harbour, between ...

, 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 Boeing Renton Factory, Renton Factory in Washington (state), Washington. Developed to supplement the Boeing 727 on short and thin routes, the twinjet retains the Boeing 707, 7 ...

, 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 Miami Air International Flight 293 was a military charter from Guantanamo Bay to Naval Air Station Jacksonville, operated by Miami Air International. On May 3, 2019, the Boeing 737-800 aircraft operating the flight overran the runway on landi ...

, a

Boeing 737-800 The Boeing 737 Next Generation, commonly abbreviated as 737NG, or 737 Next Gen, is a narrow-body aircraft powered by two jet engines and produced by Boeing Commercial Airplanes. Launched in 1993 as the third generation derivative of the Boein ...

, hydroplaned and experienced a

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 Jac ...

. 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 The Grumman F4F Wildcat is an American carrier-based fighter aircraft that entered service in 1940 with the United States Navy, and the British Royal Navy where it was initially known as the Martlet. First used by the British in the North Atlant ...

and

Douglas TBD Devastator The Douglas TBD Devastator was an American torpedo bomber of the United States Navy. Ordered in 1934, it first flew in 1935 and entered service in 1937. At that point, it was the most advanced aircraft flying for the Navy and possibly for any na ...

, 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 A booster rocket (or engine) is either the first stage of a multistage rocket, multistage launch vehicle, or else a shorter-burning rocket used in parallel with longer-burning sustainer engine, sustainer rockets to augment the space vehicle's t ...

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 Armadillo Aerospace was an aerospace startup company based in Mesquite, Texas. Its initial goal was to build a crewed suborbital spacecraft capable of space tourism, and it had also stated long-term ambitions of orbital spaceflight. The company ...

Lunar Lander Challenge The Northrop Grumman Lunar Lander Challenge (NG-LLC) was a competition funded by NASA's Centennial Challenges program. The competition offered a series of prizes for teams that launch a vertical takeoff/vertical landing (VTVL) rocket that achiev ...

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 The United States Air Force (USAF) is the air service branch of the United States Armed Forces, and is one of the eight uniformed services of the United States. Originally created on 1 August 1907, as a part of the United States Army Sign ...

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 Spaceflight (or space flight) is an application of astronautics to fly spacecraft into or through outer space, either human spaceflight, with or uncrewed spaceflight, without humans on board. Most spaceflight is uncrewed and conducted mainly w ...

, 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 pay ...

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.