Rubik: Just a few points about gliding into the ground. To do that in a controlled fashion, you need to have the ability to use your tail control surfaces to flare the plane to a slower speed, And to not stall at this slower speed, you need to be able to deploy your flaps. This plane had none of these options available. They could not slow below 200+ kts and keep the plane in the air. They could not raise the nose other than by increasing engine thrust. While gliding might have been a good idea if they could dump speed down to 120 kts., but they could not. And as we know, KE = (1/2)*m*(v^2). So they had close to 3 times as much kinetic energy to deal with as in a controlled ditching. It was a miracle that they could even get the first impact with wings close to level.