"The fact that the plane landed on a soft surface and that there was no fire helped keep the number of fatalities low, " he said.

BBC: Turkish plane crash in Amsterdam

By using lightweight aerospace materials like carbon fiber, which has the strength of steel but weighs a fifth as much, naval architects can design boats that plane across the surface of the water instead of plowing through it.

FORBES: Mine's Lighter

This is a special type of Earth model which traces its idealised "horizontal" surface - the plane on which, at any point, the pull of gravity is perpendicular to it.

BBC: Europe's Goce satellite probes Earth's gravity