By Jim Opalka

In the summer of 2001, the pilot of a Pilatus PC-12 and three passengers were flying from Japan to Russia when the single-engine turboprop experienced an engine failure. The pilot ditched the airplane in the Sea of Okhotsk in the western Pacific and the four occupants rode out the eight-12-foot seas in a life raft for 15 hours before being rescued.

For the occupants of the Pilatus, the ditching was as clean as it could get. They exited the airplane right into the raft. No extricating themselves from an inverted and flooded fuselage. No painful swim through icy waters to climb shivering into the raft. …