protectthehornet -
"I would think that anyone who had ever flown(as a pilot) into any airport near a huge city with waterways/rivers/lakes/bays/oceans had at least considered the possibility of ditching on takeoff or landing there."
I can't speak for all pilots, but I know that I did just that. Learning to fly in small single-engine bug smashers and having my instructor pulling the power off and saying, "Forced landing" on every flight (sometimes more than once on each flight), taught me to be thinking along those lines all the time. Even when I flew to Honolulu, I was always checking out the Primary and Secondary swells to pick a ditch heading. And I had FOUR engines! Fortunately, I never had to ditch.