Did they try to land on other carriers? Try to make it back to land? Ditch near a friendly ship?
This answer has been taken from a previous discussion on this topic.
Pilots who found themselves unable to land on the carrier that launched them had three options. Firstly, they could try to find another carrier to land on. Carriers were usually used in groups, so there would be another flight-deck around for them to land on. If this had also been destroyed, then they could try to land on a friendly land runway. This could lead to cases of mistaken identity and friendly fire, especially if the airbase had been attacked by opposing aircraft. Finally, they could ditch in the ocean. Usually, this would be done near the escorts of the carrier they would be supposed to land on. There were some cases of aircraft ditching mid-ocean, but this tended to result from poor navigation, as was seen with various American squadrons at Midway.
As to the survival rates, they tended to be pretty good. I'm going to consider casualties at Midway, because I have them available. Of the 30 Japanese fighters that were on CAP duty when the American dive-bombers left after the first strike, all but one would be recovered aboard Hiryu. One aircraft would be forced to ditch due to fuel exhaustion after 7 hours in the air. The pilot would be rescued. No Japanese pilots would land on land during the battle. Eleven aircraft of Hornet's VB-8 would land on Midway, as they were unable to locate their carrier. Three of their aircraft would take damage from friendly anti-aircraft fire, but the crews had no injuries. Twelve Japanese fighters were in the air when Hiryu was bombed at 17:03. These would all ditch over the coming hours. All of the pilots were rescued by the destroyers and cruisers that had been escorting the carriers. 10 planes of Hornet's fighter squadron, VF-8, would ditch to the south-east of the American carriers due to poor navigation. Of these, 8 pilots would ultimately be rescued. One was killed while ditching, while another survived ditching, but was never rescued. This suggests that as long as you were close to friendly forces, you were likely to survive. If your fleet controlled the battlefield at the end, you were likely to be rescued if you weren't near the fleet, but there was still a chance you wouldn't make it.
Sources:
Parshall, J., Tully, A., Shattered Sword, Potomac Books, 2007
For what it's worth, I wrote an answer to this about a year ago.