Originally Posted by
mike757007
Question ? Assuming the aircraft flew on without human input until it ran out of fuel. When it hit the sea, would the aircraft fuselage stay intact, or would it disintegrate creating lots of surface wreckage ?
As with everything else here, it depends.
There have been several recorded instances of aircraft making soft landings without human intervention. Admittedly the ones I know of were military jets where the crew had banged out, but there is no reason to suppose that the aircraft may have made a very shallow descent, alighted and remained intact.
Had this been the case, and passengers were not previously incapacitated, then there would be no reason why life rafts and slides were not deployed.