By Bryan Webster

Ditching an aircraft is something you hopefully will never face. Indeed, most of us rarely fly over a body of water of any appreciable size. Those who do seem to arrive at their land-based destinations with some regularity.

But, even if you restrict your flying to territory you think is dry land, a sufficient number of rivers and lakes exist in North America to make the possibility of ditching your aircraft a real one. Of course, if you fly a floatplane or amphibian, you regularly operate to and from water. Even if you exercise the greatest care during your seaplane operations, accidents can and do happen. …