Originally Posted by sophiagymgall

Yes, that was ET 961, which crashed while attempting a water landing near the Comoros Islands - it ran out of fuel after being hijacked. People who hadn't inflated their life jackets were able to swim out of the aircraft and then swim to the coast, which was fairly close.

Basically, you have no way of knowing what will be safer should there be a major issue. In some particular cases, depending on the nature of the issue, it's better to inflate your life jacket, and in some cases it isn't. It's akin to deciding to sit in the front or the back of the aircraft - while there are some statistics about it, obviously you have no guarantee that if you sit in the back you won't get unlucky and have it be the most damaged area of the aircraft, as was the case with ET 961, IIRC. Basically, all you can do is take your pick and hope you chose right for that particular flight!