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They get there by combination: displacement, large surface area (the wings) and boyancy...

I saw very little in the way of outright wrong answers (apart from the pressurized rubbish and the 1 or 2 "floats in air" answers :P)... being a bit unfair perhaps... :(

How is large surface area (of the wings) a distinct part of the answer from displacement (of all parts of the plane under the waterline)?

It's like some sort of idiot poem: (replace , with line break)

there wuz an air bubble, in the air plane, so that caused the plane, to float, thank god that , that air bubble wuz , there or the passengers , would have froze in the water,

but you had to laugh at the "it's on a sandbar" answer.