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This a pretty amazing story....


Jan 15, 6:24 PM EST

LINK

All 155 safe after pilot ditches jet in NYC river

By DAVID B. CARUSO
Associated Press Writer

NEW YORK (AP) -- A US Airways pilot ditched his disabled jetliner into the frigid Hudson River on Thursday afternoon after a collision with a flock of birds apparently knocked out both engines, but officials said rescuers pulled all 155 people on board into boats as the plane sank.

There were no immediate reports of any serious injuries.

Mayor Michael Bloomberg, an experienced pilot, said it appeared the pilot did "a masterful job of landing the plane in the river and then making sure everybody got out." And Gov. David Patterson pronounced it "a miracle on the Hudson."

Flight 1549 went down minutes after takeoff from LaGuardia Airport for Charlotte, N.C., splashing into the river near 48th Street in midtown Manhattan.

"There were eyewitness reports the plane may have flown into a flock of birds," said Federal Aviation Administration spokeswoman Laura Brown. "Right now we don't have any indication this was anything other than an accident."

Passenger Jeff Kolodjay of Norwalk, Conn., said he heard an explosion two or three minutes into the flight, looked out the left side of the Airbus A320 and saw one of the engines on fire.

"The captain said, `Brace for impact because we're going down,'" Kolodjay said. He said passengers put their heads in their laps and started praying. He said the plane hit the water pretty hard, but he was fine.

"It was intense. It was intense. You've got to give it to the pilot. He made a hell of a landing," Kolodjay said.

The plane was submerged in the icy waters up to the windows when rescuers in police and Coast Guard vessels and ferry boats arrived, opened the door and pulled passengers in yellow life vests from the aircraft, whose fuselage appeared intact. The plane was sinking in the near-freezing water on one of the coldest days of the year, with the mercury around 20 degrees.

Police divers rescued a few people from the water, Bloomberg said. Other passengers were able to walk out onto the wings, then onto rescue boats.

Paramedics treated at least 78 patients, fire officials said. The Coast Guard said it rescued 35 people who were immersed in the cold water and ferried them to shore. Most were sent to hospitals. No information was released on their condition.

Witnesses said the pilot appeared to guide the plane down.

"I see a commercial airliner coming down, looking like it's landing right in the water," said Bob Read, who saw it from his office at the television newsmagazine "Inside Edition." "This looked like a controlled descent."

Barbara Sambriski, a researcher at The Associated Press, saw the plane go down from the news organization's high-rise office. "I just thought, 'Why is it so low?' And, splash, it hit the water," she said.

The pilot reported a "double bird strike" less than a minute after taking off, said Doug Church, a spokesman for the National Air Traffic Controllers Union. The controller sent the aircraft back toward LaGuardia, but the pilot saw an airport below him and asked what it was, Church said. It was Teterboro Airport in New Jersey, and the pilot asked to land there, Church said.

The instruction to land at Teterboro was the last communication with the plane before it went into the river, Church said.

US Airways said 150 passengers, three flight attendants and two pilots were on board the jetliner.

"This is really a potential tragedy that may have become one of the most spectacular days in the history of New York City's agencies, its coordination and the greatness of the people that work here and all they did for those passengers who are now tonight going to go home to their families," the governor said.

Joe Mazzone, a retired Delta Air Lines pilot, said it is not unusual for birds to strike planes. In fact, he said, when planes get ready to take off, if there are birds in the area, the tower will alert the crew.

In the rare cases in which birds get sucked into an engine, "they literally just choke out the engine and it quits," Mazzone said.

Twenty-seven years ago this week, an Air Florida plane bound for Tampa crashed into the Potomac River after hitting a bridge just after takeoff from Washington National Airport. The crash on Jan. 13, 1982, killed 78 people including four people in their cars on the bridge. Five people on the plane survived.

On Dec. 20, a Continental Airlines plane veered off a runway and slid into a snowy field at the Denver airport, injuring 38 people. That was the first major crash of a commercial airliner in the United States since Aug. 27, 2006, when 49 people were killed after a Comair jetliner mistakenly took off from the wrong runway in Lexington, Ky.

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Associated Press writers Colleen Long in New York City, Joan Lowy, Eileen Sullivan and Michael J. Sniffen in Washington and Harry R. Weber in Atlanta contributed to this report.

Just as kind of an addition to this story, the last three flights I had to make were on US Air. All had engine problems that delayed the flights. One for several hours.

Don't know if it was birds or bad maintenance today, but I'm done with Useless Air.

Props (pun intended) to the pilot. Hero!


Just heard most passengers were Bank of America employees....yet another bailout.

The pilot is most definitely a hero. Dude has skills. This is phenomenal that everyone lived, cuz that is pretty much never the case once a plane is airborne and it crashes.

that was freakin amazing.. that pilot is a hero....

They made a story on the pilot. I worship him. (sorry I work for the airlines, these things are always traumatic for me)

http://www.cnn.com/2009/TRAVEL/01/15/usairways.landing/index.html

j/c

My cousin is a pilot for US. She just e-mailed me. She wasn't on the plane of course.

Sully apparently did a heck of a job though. And he went through the plane twice, checking for passengers, before he left.

Wow,,that's a great job by that pilot. I mean takeoff you are climbing and if your engines fail you don't have much time to act under pressure like that. Amazing that they all walked away,,kudos!

When I do fly it's usually Continental or US Air.

My dad's a pilot and from what he's told me before, as long as there's no spin and the winds not too bad any plane with no engines is basically a glider. My dad's not flown anything near as big as one of these planes though.

All pilots are trained on how to react when they lose engines. In fact part of their training is to cut the engines and fly the plane like that.

After saying all that, kudos to this pilot. As many have said on here the takeoff is the most vunerable part of the flight, not a lot of time to attempt to fix something if there's a problem.

I'm a pilot, and no I don't fly anything as big as that but it just wasn't that pilot. His Co-pilot played a major role in what was happening in that cockpit too. There also needs to be credit given to flight attendants who helped evacuate the plane.

A pilot is as only as good as his training and his judgment both of which were put to the test. Also peen most critical area in flight is landing, usually takeoff is one of the easier parts, but when you hit stuff and craps out your motor you are in trouble no matter what phase of flight you are in.

Seriously tho people need to realize i wasn't all just that one pilot it was a team.

Ah, where to start with you young child.

Let's see: not too long ago you tried to tell this board that you and your frat brothers raised x amount of money for charities this year. Now we hear that you an inactive member of some frat from a far off distant college. So, in other words, what you posted a few nights ago was wrong - you had no part in raising any money.

Now, as far as you working since you were 8. I would surely hope that all your work was done on a farm - a family farm. Because if that's not the case, well......some gov't. people might want to speak with you about taxes. If it was a family farm, no problem. If you worked for others, there are forms to fill out, taxes to be paid, etc. I have an 8 yr. old daughter. She ain't working anywhere. If you grew up on a farm and worked for your dad, that's one thing. If you were 8 and worked for others? That's a whole different thing. (see, this real world thing kinda sucks, especially when you havent been in it)

So, you have friends that "work for airliners"? Good for you. And, you're a pilot. Great. I also have A friend that is a pilot, flying "airliners", and a cousin that flies "airliners". Does that mean I know more than you? Nope. Does that mean you know more than me? Nope. Nice try though.

You also stated "wtf does global warming have to do with this thread..." and I would reply what does my believing in God have to do with the last thread you and I discssed anything in? Answer?

As to pilot and co-pilot: First of all, who cares what responsibilities the co-pilot had? The pilot was the one in control. Are you going to try and tell me the co pilot told the pilot what to do? Did he tell the pilot the engines were blown? Did he tell the pilot how to glide onto the water? And who cares anyway? The pilots ass was on the line, not the co pilot.

Oh, one last thing: you say you are starting to get sick of me? Get ready for a long ride son, cause everytime you post crap I'll be here to call you on it.

Frat boy - or ex frat boy, or used to be frat boy.......whatever you go by pilot.

You know the ignore button was made for people like you....and I have no idea what you posted nor do I care

Gotta go with Loki......why the heck did you waste our time with 3 posts calling him a frat boy? College kid steal your first girlfriend?

Sheesh.....

Yes yes,, of course,, those PILOTS were amazing....

I see Arch's point a little but the point is that we all agree that the piolt or pilots or pilots and crew...whatever did an amazing job . Too often these stories had a much different outcome so news like this is welcome and there is enough praise to go around .

I couldn't quit watching all the coverage on this last night. Everybody did a great job from the flight crew, to the rescuers, to the passengers. They all performed perfectly and this is one great story.

Yea, there more it has sunk in, the more amazing it is to me.

Dateline actaully scrapped the show they had planned tonight and worked all night on this story. They will have a full hour devoted to this "Miracle on the Hudson" tonight.

Investigation begins in plane's NYC splash landing
By JENNIFER PELTZ and CRISTIAN SALAZAR, Associated Press Writers – 1 min ago AP –



NEW YORK – Investigators brought in a giant crane and a barge Friday to help pull a US Airways jetliner from the Hudson River, and survivors among the 155 people aboard recounted tales of horror and hailed the pilot as a hero who delivered them from certain death.

While on a rescue raft with pilot Chesley B. "Sully" Sullenberger III in the frigid cold, passenger Billy Campbell said he went to him.

"I leaned over and grabbed his arm, and I said I just want to thank you on behalf of all of is, Campbell told NBC's "Today" show. "He just said, 'You're welcome.'"'

Campbell was sitting in the back of the plane when it landed on the water.

"The water was rushing in through the window seams and we couldn't get the back exit open," he said. "So, that scared us a little bit, and we tried and the flight attendant did a wonderful job trying, but then finally turned and said immediately "'Go to the wing (exit).'"

The parents of a 3-year-old girl and a 9-month-old boy recounted Friday how they and a fellow passenger prepared themselves for the crash landing and escaped from the fast-submerging plane.

"I held Sophia and we did the best we could to brace ourselves up," Martin Sosa, the father, told NBC's "Today." "And the gentleman beside me said, "Would you like me to brace your son? ... And I said okay, because he mentioned that he had been on scary flights before."

"And he did, he braced my son. There was an impact. My son was crying. That was such a good sign to me."

National Transportation Safety Board investigators will now focus on recovering the black box from the plane and interviewing the crew about the accident — apparently caused by birds that slammed into the plane's two engines. The Airbus A320, built in 1999, was tethered to a pier on the tip of Lower Manhattan on Friday morning — about 4 miles from where it touched down. Only a gray wing tip could be seen jutting out of the water near a Lower Manhattan sea wall. About a block away, it was business as usual as residents jogged or headed to work.

"We want to get the plane recovered as soon as possible but we want to do it a safe way," NTSB spokeswoman Kitty Higgins said.

Higgins said one challenge will be hauling the plane out of the water without causing it to break apart.

Sullenberger and co-pilot Jeff Skiles and crew have become instant heroes for guiding the plane to safety and safely evacuating the passengers. Sullenberger's wife told CNN she hadn't been watching the news and was stunned to hear about the ordeal from her husband after it was all over.

"I've heard Sully say to people, `It's rare for an airline pilot to have an incident in their career,'" Lorrie Sullenberger said. "When he called me he said, `There's been an accident.' At first I thought it was something minor, but then he told me the circumstances and my body started shaking and I rushed to get our daughters out of school."

James Ray, a spokesman for the U.S. Airline Pilots Association, said he spoke with Sullenberger on Friday and described him as being "in good shape physically, mentally and in good spirits."

"He was just very calm and cool, very relaxed, just very professional," Ray said.

Ray said the flight crew was resting and likely would meet with investigators later Friday or Saturday. He said the crew has been asked not talk to the press about the accident until after the NTSB investigation is complete.

Sullenberger, 57, of Danville, Calif., is a former Air Force fighter pilot who has flown for US Airways for 29 years. He also runs a safety consulting firm.

US Airways chief executive Doug Parker said in a statement it was premature to speculate about the cause. Federal Aviation Administration spokeswoman Laura Brown said there was no immediate indication the incident was "anything other than an accident."

On his Friday morning radio show, Mayor Michael Bloomberg said the city "got away with a miracle." He planned to honor the rescuers at a City Hall ceremony later Friday.

It was a chain of improbability. Birds tangle with airplanes regularly but rarely bring down commercial aircraft. Jet engines sometimes fail — but both at once? Pilots train for a range of emergencies, but few, if any, have ever successfully ditched a jet in one of the nation's busiest waterways without any life-threatening injuries.

"We had a miracle on 34th Street. I believe now we have had a miracle on the Hudson," Gov. David Paterson said.

If the accident was hard to imagine, so was the result: Besides one victim with two broken legs, there were no other reports of serious injuries to the 155 people aboard.

"You're happy to be alive, really," 23-year-old passenger Bill Zuhoski said.

US Airways Airbus A320, bound for Charlotte, N.C., took off from LaGuardia Airport at 3:26 p.m. Less than a minute later, the pilot reported a "double bird strike" and said he needed to return to LaGuardia, said Doug Church, a spokesman for the National Air Traffic Controllers Association.

Passengers quickly realized something was terrifyingly wrong.

"I heard an explosion, and I saw flames coming from the left wing, and I thought, `This isn't good,'" said Dave Sanderson, 47, who was heading home to Charlotte from a business trip. "Then it was just controlled chaos. People started running up the aisle. People were getting shoved out of the way."

Then came an ominous warning from the captain: "Brace for impact because we're going down," according to passenger Jeff Kolodjay, 31.

Some passengers prayed. Vallie Collins, 37, tapped out a text message to her husband, Steve: "My plane is crashing." For a desperate half-hour, he was unable to get in touch with her to learn that she had survived.

Onshore, from streets and office windows, witnesses watched the plane steadily descend off roughly 48th Street in midtown Manhattan.

"I just thought, `Why is it so low?' And, splash, it hit the water," said Barbara Sambriski, a researcher at The Associated Press, who watched the water landing from the news organization's high-rise office.

The 150 passengers and five crew members were forced to escape as the plane quickly became submerged up to its windows in 36-degree water. Dozens stood on the aircraft's wings on a 20-degree day, one of the coldest of the winter, as commuter ferries and Coast Guard vessels converged to rescue them.

One ferry, the Thomas Jefferson of the company NY Waterway, arrived within minutes. Riders grabbed life vests and rope and tossed them to plane passengers in the water.

"They were cheering when we pulled up," Capt. Vincent Lombardi. "People were panicking. They said, `Hurry up! Hurry up!'"

Two police scuba divers said they pulled a woman from a lifeboat "frightened out of her mind" and lethargic from hypothermia. Helen Rodriguez, a paramedic who was among the first to arrive at the scene, said she saw one woman with two broken legs.

Paramedics treated at least 78 patients, many for hypothermia, bruises and other minor injuries, fire officials said. Some of the shivering survivors were swaddled in blankets, their feet and legs soaked.

Mayor Michael Bloomberg and US Airways' Parker were set to honor those who came to the aid of the passengers at a ceremony later Friday at City Hall.

From 1990 to 2007, there were nearly 80,000 reported incidents of birds striking nonmilitary aircraft, about one strike for every 10,000 flights, according to the Federal Aviation Administration and the Department of Agriculture.

The Hudson accident took place almost exactly 27 years after an Air Florida plane bound for Tampa crashed into the Potomac River just after takeoff from Washington National Airport, killing 78 people. Five people on that flight survived.

On Dec. 20, a Continental Airlines plane veered off a runway and slid into a snowy field at Denver International Airport, injuring 38 people. That was the first major crash of a commercial airliner in the United States since Aug. 27, 2006, when 49 people were killed after a Comair jetliner took off from a Lexington, Ky., runway that was too short.



http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090116/ap_on_re_us/plane_splashdown

Why do you two have to turn this topic into a bickering match?

For everyone else, do you think the passengers get the "golden ticket"?

I would join the John Madden world of travel if I had been on that plane.

Oh come on ... what are the odds of being in a plane crash TWICE in your life?!

I mean you never hear of people still playing the lottery after they won it once.

Only in first class, unless they have seriously screwed up your flight.

Heck no. Nothing's free on a plane anymore. Last one I was on, | had to pay for my ginger ale.