Not maybe, yes. Thats what it means. “Water ditching” is a common colloquial name for an “emergency water landing” which is a type of emergency landing. A plane doing a nose dive straight into the water is not an emergency landing. That’s just a run of the mill crash.
I think ditching implies some control over the aircraft, versus straight crashing.
Maybe. Can anyone illuminate the 80% statistic? I’d like to know what it actually means.
Not maybe, yes. Thats what it means. “Water ditching” is a common colloquial name for an “emergency water landing” which is a type of emergency landing. A plane doing a nose dive straight into the water is not an emergency landing. That’s just a run of the mill crash.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Water_landing
The US forest service says it’s 90% but I’m not sure where they get that number from either.
https://www.fs.usda.gov/Internet/FSE_DOCUMENTS/stelprdb5139786.pdf