[Larry King] I’m here with the pilot of the US Airways jet that crashed into the Hudson. Tell me, when you were bringing that jet in, did you ever think about what this was going to do to the financial markets? Were you planning on calling your broker as soon as you got that plane down? [/Larry King]
Maybe all airliner landings should be in the water, because I can’t remember the last time I got off a plane in 90 seconds.
Can you recall having the extra incentive of drowning or fire at your back the last few times you got off an airplane? No? See, it’s mostly a matter of motivation… Possible Horrible Death speeds de-planing times.
It was fantastic skill combined with good luck. The fantastic and amazing skill is being able to ditch successfully an Airbus on a river (any river) with not a single casualty. Bravo!
The luck is that a normally windy area was far less windy, so there were no white-caps or chop on the water to contend with.
The luck was also that this winter was not (yet) a winter in which large chunks of ice were floating down the Hudson river (yes, some winters they do; I’ve personally seen them). Pretty sure ice can stop a speeding Airbus faster than engine kitten pate.
Lastly, it was luck in the timing. At certain times of day, a half dozen water taxis motor across that river at what has always looked to me like full throttle. My guess is that if the plane had hit a water taxi mid-Hudson, both would have lost.
Thank you for mentioning this book. I just wen tout and bought it. This is a topic I find fascinating, and I was happy to see a book on it.
This literally made me laugh out loud. Quote of the year, in my book!
In a New York Times article on the plane crash, they mentioned a passenger who stripped down to his underwear before getting out. It makes sense, since we all learn in swim class that it’s difficult to swim clothed but then he got into the dinghy, and found that everyone else was clothed. (They each gave him something to wear.) So I can imagine he was embarrassed. And another passenger got a text message from a co-worker in Charlotte asking where he was, so he replied, “I landed in the Hudson.”
Also, the latest news is that the left engine was not found with the plane.
Much of the usual delay is probably caused by fetching luggage from the overhead compartments and so on, which would presumably no longer be a concern when speed is of the essence.
Old Sully’s got him self a fit and trim wife Lorrie.
Good for him!
There’s nothing like post-crash/spouse-almost-died/is-considered-a-hero sex!
I just caught a report on TV that they plan to pull the plane out as early as tomorrow. Both engines are missing and they have not recovered the black boxes yet. She also mentioned that if they get the engines there should be enough DNA left to identify the type of bird.
A large part of the delay is that they only unload from a single door in most cases these days. This is an area the airlines and airports could address if they chose to.
How did they know the dead ones didn’t listen?
Yeah, I figured his wife gave him the thank you we all wish we could. 
I saw the track of the plane from takeoff to landing (sorry, lost the link), and it looked like the pilot, though heading for a NJ airport, kept to the river path very closely. He was lucky to be close to it in the first place, but my guess is he wanted to have as many options as possible in case he couldn’t make NJ.
What pisses me off is the people who say it was a miracle. Miracle, my ass; it was good flying and good equipment.
In that heavily populated area, during the day, with video cams as common as they are, I’m surprised there isn’t video of the landing. Everything else I’ve seen was taken afterwards, with one video showing the plane relatively high up, passing behind some trees where the cameraman lost it.
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601087&sid=afUSBv4dzA2k&refer=home
Looks like they might just barely have reached TEB, but maybe not, and they wouldn’t have been lined up with either runway there. Coldly put, the decision might have been to kill only the occupants of the plane, not people on the ground too.
There are a couple of stills on the NY Times web site. Both show both engines attached, btw.
It now looks like the engines came off during the landing (perhaps by hitting the water first, before the fuselage?), not before, so that would be expected.
Given what tends to happen in NYC when planes don’t make the runway, I’m sure most folks were busy screaming and running.