Would a plane sink to the bottom of the ocean?

Can a large modern jet airliner plunge intact underwater from flight? No. Large airliners are not desgned for this and are not even strong enough to make a landing on water in less than perfect conditions. striking the surface at a larger angle would certainly lead to widespread disintegration.



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Can a large modern jet airliner plunge intact underwater from flight? No. Large airliners are not desgned for this and are not even strong enough to make a landing on water in less than perfect conditions.

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It depends on the plane. Some aircraft have the ditching qualities of a submarine and may sink within a minute, while others may remain over the surface for hours.

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How many sunken planes are in the ocean? More than 150 planes are thought to lie at the bed of the ocean, 130-feet underwater.

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Jet streams, which are a system of air currents that circle the Earth many miles above the planet's surface, are another reason why aircraft don't fly over the Pacific Ocean. Due to Earth's rotation, these air currents often move from West to East.

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Has a plane ever ditched in the ocean? 23 November 1996: Ethiopian Airlines Flight 961 (a Boeing 767-260ER), ditched in the Indian Ocean near Comoros after being hijacked and running out of fuel, killing 125 of the 175 passengers and crew on board.

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22 October 1962: Northwest Airlines Flight 293, a DC-7C with 7 crew and 95 passengers made a successful water landing in Sitka Sound.

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Seaplanes, such as floatplanes and flying boats, 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.

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In the US, there is an average of 1,662 plane crashes per year. Globally, there are 6,392 plane crashes per year, on average.

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If the aircraft is partly submerged, you may have to wait for the cabin/cockpit to fill partially with water to allow the pressure to equalize before you are able to open the doors. For many, the most difficult part of surviving a ditching accident is an underwater egress.

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No. There is no mechanism that allows the crew to dump the contents of the lav holding tank. It is possible that a fault in the system could result in waste going overboard, but such incidents are very rare. See What happens when you flush the toilet on an airplane?

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The good news is that pilots are supposed to dump fuel at a safe height above the ground and away from other aircraft, and in addition, over as remote an area as possible. In the case of Heathrow, for example, most fuel dumps have occurred over the sea.

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Because of its vast size, crossing the Pacific Ocean requires a staggering quantity of fuel. However, most commercial aircraft do not fly directly over the Pacific Ocean; instead, they choose what are known as 'curved paths'. These paths offers a faster, more efficient route given the curved nature of the earth.

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The most common reason is that there are no airstrips or airports on many of the small islands, so if a plane had to make an emergency landing, it would be difficult to find a place to land. Additionally, the Pacific Ocean is vast and remote, so if a plane were to go down, it would be very difficult to find.

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United flight's plunge toward the ocean was caused by pilot error, NTSB says. A 2022 incident where a United Airlines flight came within 748 feet of crashing into the Pacific Ocean was caused by pilot error, federal investigators say.

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You may think the life vest under your airplane seat will save your life if the aircraft ends up in the water. In fact, such a thing has never happened in modern commercial airline flying.

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Aerodynamic altitude: If a commercial airliner flies too high, it will encounter less dense air passing over the wings to create lift. This can cause the plane to stall and fall out of control. Depending on the weather conditions and aircraft weight, this can occur anywhere between 40,000 and 45,000 feet.

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What is the longest flight in the world by distance? The longest flight in the world by distance is New York (JFK) to Singapore (SIN) on Singapore Airlines clocking in at 9,537 miles. What plane can fly the farthest in the world?

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