pac plyer wrote:

Swept-wing jets are not survivable in most ditching senerios
because of the 150-kt speed (ballpark approach.)

There was the Japan Airlines DC-8 (swept wing) that landed in the bay
short of SFO in 1968, where all the passengers survived, and the
aircraft was undamaged enough that it was repaired and flew again.

There was also the Overseas National DC-9, operating under wet lease to
KLM, that ran out of fuel over the Caribbean in 1970. There were 63
passengers and crew aboard, and of those, 40 survived. They ditched at
about 90 knots, and the fuselage remained essentially intact. It then
floated for an estimated 10 minutes before sinking. A number of the
fatalities occurred when the aircraft hit the water, as some passengers
were still struggling with their life vests, and were standing in the
aisle, or were seated and not belted in.

Finally, a Tupolev 124 ditched in the Neva River in Leningrad in 1963
after running out of fuel. Everybody aboard survived.

We laugh every year at the ridiculous raft training and sea survival gear
we haul around, knowing that even if you survived like they did in the
Eithiopian A310,

That was a 767.

your chances of being able to find the liferaft when the floor
distorts and breaks apart are poor.

The floor did not distort or break apart in either the JAL "landing" or
the Overseas National ditching. However, all of the life rafts sank
with the aircraft in the Overseas National incident, only one escape
slide was later found in the water, and was inflated by a crewmember.
One of the life rafts somehow inflated in the forward galley area after
the ditching, blocking the door to the cockpit, and the exit doors. Most
passengers escaped through the overwing exits.

In that accident, just like the UAL Soiux City DC10 crash, the
main reason there were survivors was because energy was disipated
by the jet cartwheeling and shedding structure progressively;
wings, tail, engines.

There might have been less structural damage had the captain been able
to land horizontally. He was interviewed after the event, and stated
that he was struggling with a hijacker at the time, and had to bank to
turn the aircraft to avoid hitting land. The aircraft therefore hit the
water asymmetrically, which initiated the cartwheeling.

The 747 is designed to shear the pod engines in a water landing.
But ALL the known 747 ditchings were unsucessful.

I don't know of a single attempt.

Air India and South African Airways were never even found.

Air India was a bomb at altitude, not a ditching. The aircraft was
found, and the Canadian government spent a huge amount of money pulling
the wreckage up from the ocean floor off the coast of Ireland. (It had
departed from Toronto.) A couple of suspects were recently brought to
trial in Canada, accused of having made and planted the bomb.

The South African plane broke up in the air, after reporting a fire
aboard. (Assuming you are referring to the accident off Mauritius in
1987) They no more tried to ditch than did the crew of the Swissair
MD-11 off the coast of Nova Scotia.

This is a carry-over by the FAA regs from straight-wing days.
Water evac only comes into play in a runway overrun event.

While not exactly common, it has been required and been somewhat
successful a couple of times.