Does anyone know if there's a possibility for survivors? Could a highly skilled pilot glide the plane to a safe crash landing on the water given ideal conditions for an engine failure (assuming thats what happened)? Or does a crash landing over the ocean basically mean the worst? My thoughts and prayers go out to those involved.
It's a very different scenario, I know, but when Ethiopian Airlines flight 961 crashed into the ocean because it ran out of fuel during a hijacking, 50 out of a total of 163 people survived.
Of course that crashed happened close to shore and rescues started quite quickly.
> Does anyone know if there's a possibility for survivors?
I doubt it. No emergency transponder recorded. No mayday heard. It was at night. This suggests one of two things to my mind:
1. catastrophic failure with no real time to adjust, like an inflight breakup, or
2. A lack of knowledge that the flight was flying into the ocean (AF447 comes to mind there but there are other cases).
Ditching a commercial aircraft in the ocean is not easy. It's going to be rediculously difficult at night, and right now there is no indication that the pilot was even trying to go for an emergency landing.
I wish I could be hopeful, but it really doesn't look good.
