Airbus A320s, like the one involved in today's dramatic but fatality-free crash, and their Boeing 737 counterparts, will come to rest in survivable ditchings in a tail down attitude with the rear door sills under water.
Firstly, may I say that as pax/ppl I usually respect the overwhelming "pro's only" comments on threads such as this and quite rightly too, but I thought this might be an interesting response to the above.
I have a large collection of safety cards (gained leagally by asking crew for spares, so don't preach) and having just checked, the A320 ones (UA, B6, BA, BD etc.) ALL clearly show via diagrams that the rear exits should possibly be used in a ditching. Contrary to the article above, all the instances of 737 I checked seem to specifically prohibit the use of the rear exists in this scenario and a few (BA 734, BD 733/5 for example) state that ONLY the overwing exits (not the front doors) should be used. Interestingly, several have no specific guidance on the use of exits after ditchings!
It seems clear from the pictures that this aircraft would very quickly have sunk with open rear exits. Maybe this will be one of the (I'm sure many) safety improvements that comes from this amazing incident. I'll be watching with interest as both pilot and pax. Just a thought.