fantastic landing! this is an impressive pilot. they are reporting that the plane floated for about 2 hours.
perhaps they will give everyone on the plane polar bear awards, or at least free membership in a polar bear club. it is wicked cold dry on land today in the north east, let alone getting soaked in the hudson.
i also thought of the d.c. crash of long ago.
This is the kind of thing that helps restore my faith in humans…
[ul]
[li]A pilot doing a great job avoiding a city, making a great landing, and making sure everyone got out of his aircraft[/li][li]Passengers not panicing (too much) and getting out quickly and safely and helping each other[/li][li]The passenger ferry captain being there within minutes to start taking on passengers[/li][li]Tug boat captains and crews steaming to the site and hooking cables under the plane to help keep it afloat[/li][/ul]
All without some great masterplan or government telling people what to do. Just people taking charge, doing the right thing, and using everything at their disposal to help other people. Good stuff.
And to figure, in real time, all this happened in the time it would take me to walk down from my office to the Starbucks and get a cup of coffee…
The skill of this water landing makes me wonder if this pilot had any prior experience with seaplanes.
This, from my knowledge, is the first time modern commercial airliner greases in a landing on water, the case of the Tupolev 124 in mnemosyne´s link, while it’s a jetliner the Tu-124 had engines buried in the wingroots. A modern jetliner usually has the engines hanging under the wings, and when they hit water chances are that they’ll break off, tear the wings appart, start a fire ball and… well, it really puts the capper in any holiday plans.
They should make an aviation trophy with the pilots name, that was the definition of skill.
Sadly, folks with that kind of skill, dedication and courage too often don’t live to receive their accolades.
It has happened a few times before. Wikipedia mentions some here:
Also, not mentioned at the above site is the case in 1968 when a JAL DC-8 accidentally landed in San Francisco Bay, mentioned here:
Ed
I’ve been up and down the Hudson an lot and if you aren’t familiar with it, it could surprise you at just how WIDE it really is. And of course it’s long.
Perhaps the very cold weather helped keep other boats off the river. I would imagine if the river was full of boats it’d have been harder to land.
I have only flown in to LaGuardia when I go to NYC, but the water make the runways always looks too small to me. Obviously it’s not but it looks that way when you land there.
Doesn’t look like it, but of all the pilots you want flying your plane in an emergency, Sully was the guy. He owns his own company, Safety Reliability Methods, Inc. His bio at that site:
Bad ass indeed!
His wife was pretty freaked, as you can imagine.
How on earth was he able to fit down that narrow aisle, with those huge testicles?
I can’t help but think that the flock of Geese we saw flying was the one that caused this.
Snort.
I heard they had to rescue some people from the water. Did anyone suffer hypothermia?
I think it’s safe to say all of America Hearts Sully.
oh yeah, people are being treated for hypothermia in new jersey as well as new york city.
divers got some people out of the water, so some were totally soaked. some just soaked to the waist. hospital reports are that most will be released tonight.
there were some broken bones so some will stay in hospital.
Lets also give some love to the Captains of those ferries who were on the scene by the time the doors were open.
Y’know, a little morbid thought, I had thought to myself a little while back when reading about airline incidents, gee, it’s been some time since USelessAir last put a bird in the water off of LaGuardia…
From the links posted by suranyi it would seem like an extremely rare instance of successful ditching where (a)the airframe stays intact that was (b) deliberate, (c) involved an an underwing-engined jetliner, (d) had 100% survival rate. JA8032 in San Fran Bay was a controlled ditching but not a deliberate one (he thought he was LANDing, then boy, was he surprised). ALM 980 was a DC9, with tail engines, that ditched properly but in open sea a ways off shore so the plane sank and people were lost before rescue could be completed.
In any case, this makes clear that the safety provisions and procedures for* “in the event of a water landing” are* for real**, and not just for ease-their-minds assuagement. You CAN survive a ditching.
Now, if the exact same circumstances had put the plane down instead in the middle of LI Sound south of Connecticut today, you may have had temperature-related fatalities, as many people would have ended up wet in the cold for a significant time before rescue could get to them; as opposed to ditching in the middle of the Hudson and having all sorts of working watercraft right there within minutes. But still, the ditching itself can be done.
Just make sure you have ol’ Sully and his copilot on the sticks and throttles 
(You bet he’s going to be teaching a required course at the USAirways training center.) A bad-ass Academic, that’s cool…
Yes. At least two people were being treated in the hospital for hypothermia, and others were being checked for it.
My husband said he could relate - he once got a call from the airport saying his wife and her airplane were down in a farmer’s backyard. Not quite on the same scale as what Mr. Sullenberg did, but I’m happy to say everyone walked away from that little incident, too. Hubby didn’t stop twitching for days.
I’d say everyone involved with today’s flight experienced considerable stress.
snort
Anyway, sensational outcome. This has gotta be the greatest feat of piloting since the famous ‘Gimli Glider’ incident.
Not to spoil all the fun, but how long before PETA starts screaming about the dead geese, and how long before some clueless passenger sues US Air for emotional distress?
A friend at mine at work said his daughter is taking a US Air flight tomorrow back to college, and she was freaking out. This was when the story just broke, before we knew everyone survived. I think I’m going to book my next flight with US Air, and I’ll tip the travel agent if Sully is flying the plane.
That pilot is awesome to have kept everyone on that plane from serious harm
Aaaaannnnd… another historical thread regarding airliner safety announcements:
Probably not even the tenth.