Originally Posted by
bookworm
What evidence do you have for your implicit assertions that:
* carrying a life raft increases your chance of survival to a useful level
* "You will almost certainly hit something pretty hard [in a night forced landing]"?
I would have estimated the overall probability of surviving a forced landing at night over land as higher than that of surviving a ditching at sea with a life raft on board (but without immersion suits). But I don't have statistics.
Some stats from the NTSB
90% of ditchings are survived (93% get out of the plane but some drown) 82% of mid ocean ditchings are survived.
97% of land foced landings are survived, however, 35% of forced landings in trees result in serious injury (vs. only a few percent serious injury in ditchings).
No stats on the relative survival rates with and without rafts. However, in the text of the reports only 3% mention a raft.
The odds day in the water with a PFD and EPIRB look good, with a raft they have got to be better, with all of the above + immersion suit its got to be close to the egress rate (93%), at night over land you have got to be more likely to wind up in trees or carying too much speed before impact so I would have thought your survival rate has got to be down close to ditching.
Disappointingly 1/3 of the ditching's were the result of fuel contamination, mismanagement, or running out of it
