Excuuuuuse ME! I forgot about the little tiny dinky other inlets! Beat me with a shovel.

Also, the word is “out” that a panic-crazed passenger cracked/opened a rear cabin door, letting thousands of gallons of water flow into the cabin during the emergency evac.

Accordingly, the “ditch button” is more for mental masturbation than for anything real or useful.

Fark you very much!

Flush Garden

I think you meant to append your comment to this post. I added a pointer there to your correction.

The ditch button closes the outflow valve, emergency ram air inlet, avionics inlet, extract valve and flow control valve and cabin fans. This is to allow the aircraft to exceed aircraft buoyancy requirements in the event the aircraft remains intact after it has been ditched, so lives can be saved.

The ditch button is available on all European Airbus A320 family, A340/A330 and A380 aircraft. European Airbus pilots undergo ditch scenarios to land the airbus successfully on water and parameters required to maximise the likelihood of keeping the plane intact. i.e. pitch angle, flaps, apporach speed. etc. In this situation the Captain got it right and the plane was left intact after it was ditched. The airbus design stood up to what it was designed to do, simple as that.

Boeing, unfortunately, does not have such a facility. Hopefully they will see sense and follow the Europeans and install it in all their new aircraft.

Well done Captain and well done Airbus.

I worked for Airbus, France till two years ago when I was in Europe so I know a little bit about these things!

I hope this helps to clear things.

Back when jet fuel was far less than a dollar per gallon, aircraft manufacturers didn’t build their fuselages very air tight. The pressurization systems just used more bleed air from the engines and let a lot of pressurized and conditioned cabin air escape through numerous leaks in the fuselage. Once jet fuel became extremely pricey, the newer airliners were constructed with much more air tight seals — the result is less fuel consumption per passenger mile. The bad news is that while this might save your life in the unlikely event of a “skilled” emergency water landing, the newer jets retain more stale cabin air with a lot more bacteria and viruses floating around for everyone to breathe. Happy travels!

Interesting tidbit here:

http://timescorrespondents.typepad.com/charles_bremner/2009/01/after-air-crashes-everyone-usually-jumps-to-conclusions-and-gets-the-story-wrong-this-is-unlikely-to-be-the-case-with-us.html

“And there is credit for the French-based European Airbus firm for building a tough airliner. Among other things, unlike Boeings, the Airbus has an emergency “Ditch button”, which closes vents and makes the fuselage more watertight. Airbus pilots have always been sceptical about the button, on the overhead panel. Today, they are saying today “Oh, so that’s what it’s for.”"

So Doc–given all your flying, does hearing about plane crashes make you worry about your own traveling?