Engine failure, dead or alive?

[Crash and Burn]

Hi all,

Regarding an engine failure in a light single-engine land aeroplane with fixed undercarriage. Could someone post any information on the success rate (i.e. ‘walking away from it’) of the following?

1) Ditching, both in day and at night..
2) Forced landing, in day and at night.
3) As per 2) but with a low cloud ceiling (greater than 5/8, which is BKN or OVC at a level that gives approximatly1000 feet VMC to ground)

To those who respond ‘Thanks!’. This might just persuade a few cavalier types to think how fragile life really is.

[aviate1138]

As an owner of a couple of non retract single engine aeroplanes I wonder who on earth would be mad enough to be flying this sort of aircraft at night anyway. IMHO as a simple PPL type I would leave that sort of flying to idiots or professionals or both! If a 100,000 Cossacks were bearing down on Old Sarum's grass runway I would be in the air in an instant IFR day or night! I do practise IFR ad nauseam on a serious Flight Sim but only to use should the Cossacks actually appear - otherwise it's CAVOK aviating for me. I do have electric horizons and such but they are mainly used in heavy haze/horizonless overwater flights just for peace of mind! Or crossing the Alderney Triangle!

Aircraft are Skyarrow 650T and CFM StarStreak 912 - both PFA registered and based at EGLS - Shadow Flight Centre