Had a chat with a few colleagues. Ditching an aircraft in the middle of the Atlantic or the Pacific is almost a death sentence. If you even survive the ditching, you will now face the prospect of drowning or freezing or starving in the middle of the huge ocean. We threw around some ideas and one of the ideas was to stay up high, depressurize the aircraft (if main deck fire, as per the checklist), and PRAY that the fire will go out from lack of oxygen.
There were no "death sentences" for any of the USAir A320 occupants who had ditched in the Hudson river. Some people didn't even get their feet wet.
The B747s that I'm flying are equipped with life rafts. With today's GPS position accuracy, rescue services would find your ELT equipped, bobbing life raft before you'd "starve to death."
During an over ocean uncontrolled fire I will not pray; I will make a controlled ditching after 15min emergency descent while I can still read some instruments ...BEFORE being completely smoked out and subject to an uncontrolled crash.
