377 " Successful Ditch"

I know of two ditching incidents involving 377 Stratocruisers. One , a NWA, ditched in Puget Sound shortly after take off. It was flown by a friend of mine who also made a perfect landing with no loss of life and comparatively little damage to the airframe. He and the crew got everyone out and into the rafts but one guy decided against instructions that he was going to swim ashore to nearby Vashon Island. The water was cold and he might have made it if he hadn't swam into the path of a rescue boat.
Shortly after take off the airplane began to vibrate and lose altitude, Bob applied METO power and the airplane still was losing altitude and getting increasingly violent vibrations. He yelled at the flight engineer if he had closed the cowl flaps and the answer was affirmative. The cowl flaps on a 377 are huge, probably 14" X 20" each and when open, they cause extreme turbulence and tail buffeting. The airplane continued down and forced a water landing. When the airplane was pulled up and examined, the cowl flaps were in the WIDE OPEN position. It was determined that the flight engineer reverted to his years of service on a DC-6 and moved the cowl flap switches in the direction used on a DC-6 instead of a 377 which moved in the opposite direction to close the flaps.

 

This incident was a " Ran out of fuel, airspeed, altitude, and ideas all at the same time"routine BUT they did manage to dunk it close to the shore in shallow water. They didn't quite get the wings level and that is what did the damage. The repair was nothing short of amazing in that they got the airplane back as well as they did when the fuselage was tweaked at the front spar and the number three and four nacelles were heavily damaged plus the landing gear being ripped off. I never found out how or if they neutralized the salt water corrosion that surely will take place in years to come in the faying surfaces and crannies. When a secretary asked how in the world they got air in the fuel lines (as stated by a cynical engineer) she was editorialized by a guy who explained that it happens when you run out of fuel. A scenario that was just the opposite of the Hudson River thing. The pilots flying the airplane purchased with thier own money a short load of fuel to practice landings. On approach to the final landing at Boeing Field they encountered a landing gear problem and circled around trying to fix it and....