"Ditching" - Etymology?

[rwanttaja]

Was reading in another forum about that Piper Pawnee that lost its engine and was forced to land in the water. One participant (quite correctly, by my lights) referred to it as a "Ditching" and not a "Crash."

Which got me to wondering... how did "Ditching" become slang for landing a plane on the water? After all, ditches, conventionally, aren't that wide or long. Given the option, most pilots would prefer to land on adjoining dry ground.

Planes landing in the English Channel during WWII came to mind...Napoleon himself referred to the Channel as a "mere ditch." The British often seemed to refer to the Channel as "The Last Ditch," especially in their defense against Germany in WWII.

Anybody got any ideas on the history of this aviation term?

Ron "It bugs me, even without the 'N'" Wanttaja

[Louis]

You got me curious. I'm guessing your reference to the English channel as the "Ditch" may have something to it. I found this online:
3. fly into the sea

Meanwhile, on the other bank of the Atlantic (more about that in a moment): the “fly into the sea” meaning originated as World War II British Royal Air Force slang. It turns out that, by the 1910s, The Ditch was already a slang term for various bodies of water: notably the Atlantic (sometimes The Big Ditch), the English Channel, and the North Sea. And it was, of course, into exactly these bodies of water that RAF pilots sometimes were forced to fly.
Making a verb from a noun is common in English. RAF pilots ditched their crafts (flew into the Ditch) like we floor the gas pedal (press the pedal to the floor), plate a meal (serve a meal on a plate), pack clothing (put clothing in a pack or suitcase), shoe a horse (put shoes on a horse) – or even verb a noun.
Cassell’s Dictionary of Slang (Jonathon Green, 2005) says the “fly into the sea” sense of ditch is first attested in print in 1941,² and Oxford English Dictionary agrees. This connection between Ditch and ditch is also the opinion of online etymologists and military historians, as you can see if you google [ ditch slang term "english channel" ].
The term quickly graduated from slang to military jargon, and to this day is still the proper term used in aeronautical training and flight manuals.

[FlyingRon]

According to the OED:

b. slang. (a) trans. To bring (an aircraft) down into the sea in an emergency. (b) intr. To come down into the sea in an emergency. Cf. ditch n.1 2c


1941 Times (Weekly ed.) 15 Oct. 19 The pilot..must ‘ditch’ his aircraft in the sea, near enough to a ship for him to be picked up.




The reference to DITCH points to:

c. (a) Naval slang. The sea; (b) R.A.F. slang. The English Channel or the North Sea.


1922 Man. Seamanship I. i. 33 A smart seaman would not talk officially of the sea by a favourite slang expression ‘the ditch’.
1925 E. Fraser & J. Gibbons Soldier & Sailor Words 78 ‘He fell into the ditch’, i.e. overboard.
1945 E. Partridge Dict. R.A.F. Slang 23 The Ditch, the sea; especially the English Channel.

The ditch reference goes to even earlier slang for any waterway. So I suspect Louis's citation is correct.