Just a comment on "opened doors that allowed water ingress, sinking the airplane" All four PAX doors are normally manually actuated. Emergency opening will be done by pneumatic actuator, that is armed by cc before every flight and will go off as soon as door handle is lifted. If you donīt know how to release pressure from actuator, doors cannot be closed.
And overwing exits are throwaway items too.
Flight controls are powered by three systems. When both engine fail, only Blue system is operating - powered directly by RAT, providing power to move all primary flight controls in degraded mode and one out of five spoilers on each wing plus a little bit of movement of flaps. Also an emergency generator is powered by Blue hyd system. Flight ocntrol computers work in very degraded mode, but not sure if it is direct law or some protection is still retained - have to look in the books.
We were told that engine mounts on A-320 are designed to fail in case of ditching, shedding engines on the way.
Thats from my memory - twelve years ago I worked as licenced engineer on one of the first A-320.
At that time we were convinced that "Ditching" button on overhead panel is there just for the optimists and has nothing to do with reality. Now I am convinced that perfect ditching is possible!
Hats off and congratulations to the crew and first responders!
hoistop