Years ago I was forced to ditch my banner plane, a Piper J-5, after an engine failure at 300'.

I dove down to get some airspeed, then performed a full stall landing. I left the banner attached, thinking it would help me from flipping over. It's hard to say how much that helped, probably some.

Deceleration was dramatic, and the cockpit was full of water by the time the motion stopped. Survival without shoulder harnesses seems unlikely. I swam out and stood on the slowly sinking airplane; wishing I had taken a deeper breath before touchdown.

A lifeguard came out, we attached his buoy to the banner line. The "recovery" was an interesting affair; employing a WWII Duck. Remarkably, the airplane oriented itself during the tow, upright and on it's gear. However, at the surf line a wave broke at just the wrong time and crushed it. (First picture-airplane on ocean floor)

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Recovery of airplanes from water takes some serious thought before the attempt, and is best done by someone who's done it before. I've seen planes utterly destroyed by the "recovery" effort that were actually in great shape in the water.......and others that were recovered in basically flyable shape.

The outfit I worked for recovered a Cessna 185 amphib that'd been landed wheels down from a lake. The Chief of Maintenance knew the drill, and ran the operation. They got it righted, drained all fluids, flushed it out, added fuel and oil, flushed it again, refueled and added fresh oil, fired it up and flew it to Anchorage......Amazing.

MTV