US Airways Flt 1549 Crashed in Hudson River

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In summary, a US Airways plane carrying 155 people crashed into the Hudson River after striking one or more birds, causing the two engines to fail. The pilot successfully landed the plane in the river and all passengers and crew were rescued with no reported deaths or serious injuries. It is believed that the birds involved were seagulls or geese, and the extreme cold weather may have caused them to fly further south than usual. The fact that the plane was able to stay intact and upright in the river is a testament to the pilot's skill and the aircraft's robustness. Many people are grateful to the pilot and some credit God for the successful outcome.
  • #71
I heard the comment that this was the first successful ditching; presumably meaning the first commercial airliner to ditch without tumbling or breaking apart? Is that right?
 
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  • #72
Andre said:
From http://imnotsayin.blogspot.com/2009/01/us-airways-fight-1594-crash-flight-path.html

This looks very weird, also if you'd plot the energy of the aircraft. Something is not right there, unless the error margin of the data is large. Hence it's highly premature to speculate what happened exactly and whether or not everybody took the correct decisions.

They probably shouldn't have tried to open the rear evactuation doors. It's clear from the video that the rear doors were completely submerged, but there aren't any windows at the door itself (it might still be pretty obvious to anyone sitting next to the last window). Since the doors open outwards, water pressure held the doors shut, but the crew/passengers had already broken the seal on the door.

It got mighty uncomfortable for the folks in the rear of the plane before they reached the exit. They were wading through high water before they ever exited the plane.

By time the rescue is complete, the plane is getting very low in the water with the bottom of the side doors below the water. Not sure if that's entirely because of the rear doors leaking, since I think some of the rescue ships might have pushed the right wing down below the water.

I also liked the interview with the passengers. One of the interviewed passengers was seated in the exit row. He read the door instructions as the plane descended. I imagine quite a few students wish they could cram as well as he did.
 
  • #73
Andre said:
the energy should have dropped way more in that time frame, the altitude should have been around 900 feet for a normal glide.
That wasn't a normal glide, though, as I heard it on the news. The pilot was bringing in the plane nose-high, to scrub energy, and to try to make first contact with the tail to slow the plane more, before it bellied into the river. Kinda hard to make accurate calculations when the pilot is forced to do stuff that the plane was not designed to do.
 
  • #74
Andre said:
the energy should have dropped way more in that time frame, the altitude should have been around 900 feet for a normal glide.
We don't really know what the timeframe was, just that it was considerably less than a minute, but I don't know - a heavy and effiicient glider in an efficient configuration...

We are, of course, forgetting one important thing here: wind.
 
  • #75
russ_watters said:
We don't really know what the timeframe was, just that it was considerably less than a minute, but I don't know - a heavy and effiicient glider in an efficient configuration...

We are, of course, forgetting one important thing here: wind.

Not really:

Andre said:
The aircraft gained energy in minute 3:29 from about 8341*m to 8500*m, suggesting that it had enough power at that time to maintain level flight (wind depending).

But the heading change was only about 10-20 degrees and it's not the time of the year for big windshears
 
  • #76
Andre said:
But the heading change was only about 10-20 degrees and it's not the time of the year for big windshears
Nor did it seem too windy when the passengers were outside standing on the wing. Those buildings on either side of the Hudson can channel wind up or down that river making it pretty choppy, but the wind at ground-level seemed light that day.
 
  • #77
Andre said:
Not really:
Sorry, missed that. In any case, it doesn't take much of a change in wind to account for this anomaly. There was a 10mph wind that day (from the national weather service website), and losing it temporarily (or gaining it temporarily) would account for an instant 10% change in calculated kinetic energy.
 
  • #78
russ_watters said:
We are, of course, forgetting one important thing here: wind.

Yes! And I think it's why we should start funding DDWFTTW technology. This is obviously the final proof that this is an actual viable source of renewable, greater than unity source of power.

mgb_phys said:
Odd that insurance companies blame God when something bad happens and everyone else thanks God when anyone survives.

I was sitting in a bar when this was unfolding and saw the following image:
pf_pfojss.jpg


I asked what had happened, and someone said a plane had crashed into the Hudson.
"A plane load of Jesus's? Everyone's walking on water!" I remarked.

My acquaintance said; "No you idiot, they're standing on the wing".

:grumpy: How dare he spoil my little miracle moment with reality...
 
  • #79
Ivan Seeking said:
I heard the comment that this was the first successful ditching; presumably meaning the first commercial airliner to ditch without tumbling or breaking apart? Is that right?

i think it may have been the first where no one was killed (if you don't count simply running off the end of the runway into water)
The 767 that crashed off Ethiopia in 1999 about 50% survived although allegedly the hijackers were fighting with the flight crew as it crashed so not easy to do a perfect ditching.
Although it did break up - the ones that died had mostly inflated their lifejackets inside the plane and were trapped.

The 737 that crashed into the potomac in 82 really showed how lucky this one was with the weather and the rescue response. The rescue effort in 82 was a farce of unequipped and untrained rescuers and a lot of brave bystanders.
 
  • #80
NTSB: Pilot landed in Hudson to avoid catastrophe
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090118/ap_on_re_us/plane_splashdown
NEW YORK – The pilot of a crippled US Airways jetliner made a split-second decision to put down in the Hudson River because trying to return to the airport after birds knocked out both engines could have led to a "catastrophic" crash in a populated neighborhood, he told investigators Saturday.

Capt. Chesley B. "Sully" Sullenberger said that in the few minutes he had to decide where to set down the powerless plane Thursday afternoon, he felt it was "too low, too slow" and near too many buildings to go anywhere else, according to the National Transportation Safety Board account of his testimony.

The pilot and his first officer provided their first account to NTSB investigators Saturday of what unfolded inside US Airways Flight 1549 in the moments after it slammed into a flock of birds and lost both engines.

Co-pilot Jeff Skiles, who was flying the plane at takeoff, saw the birds coming in perfect formation, and made note of it. Sullenberger looked up, and in an instant his windscreen was filled with big, dark-brown birds.

"His instinct was to duck," said NTSB board member Kitty Higgins, recounting their interview. Then there was a thump, the smell of burning birds, and silence as both aircraft engines cut out.

The account illustrated how quickly things deteriorated after the bump at 3,000 feet, and the pilots' swift realization that returning to LaGuardia or getting to another airport was impossible.

With both engines out, Higgins said, flight attendants described complete silence in the cabin, "like being in a library." A smoky haze and the odor of burning metal or electronics filled the plane.
. . . .
Returning to LaGuardia, he quickly realized, was out. So was nearby Teterboro Airport, where he had never flown before, and which would require him to take the jet over densely populated northern New Jersey.

"We can't do it," he told air traffic controllers. "We're going to be in the Hudson."

The co-pilot kept trying to restart the engines, while checking off emergency landing procedures on a three-page list that the crew normally begins at 35,000 feet.

Sullenberger guided the gliding jet over the George Washington Bridge and looked for a place to land.

Pilots are trained to set down near a ship if they have to ditch, so they can be rescued before sinking, and Sullenberger picked a stretch of water near Manhattan's commuter ferry terminals. Rescuers were able to arrive within minutes.

It all happened so fast, the crew never threw the aircraft's "ditch switch," which seals off vents and holes in the fuselage to make it more seaworthy.
. . . .
He could have made Teterboro Airport, but he wasn't familiar with, and he only had one shot, and it was not clear he would have been properly aligned. "Sullenberger picked a stretch of water near Manhattan's commuter ferry terminals" - and that was the best choice.
 
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  • #81
This guy deserves a monument for flying in a cold blood.

Unfortunately the most obvious ideas - flying fish, flying frog, flying dragon - may be considered offensive.
 
  • #82
Yeah, it should be all three because one alone is so isolated.
 
  • #83
Police sketch of likely culprit:

http://www.chew.hu/entry_images/terror-goose.jpg
 
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  • #84
Genetically engineerd giant mutant geese are now Canada's main air superiority fighter .
This stuffed example is shown at the gates of their home base.

1282669544_9a0fcd2552.jpg
 
  • #85
US Border Defense response to Canadian Fighters entering US airspace.

http://www.underthesamesun.org/images/goose.jpg
 
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  • #86
Attempts by US secret agents to infiltrate the Canadian goose squadron were not so effective.

http://tbn0.google.com/images?q=tbn:BjtAJaCakQt2jM:http://i6.photobucket.com/albums/y213/BAMikeyD/CanadaGoose.jpg
 
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  • #87
mgb_phys said:
Attempts by US secret agents to infiltrate the Canadian goose squadron were not so effective.

CanadaGoose.jpg

What was the tip-off?

The Moosehead wasn't drained?
 
  • #89
Here's everything that was released, uncut: http://www.faa.gov/data_statistics/accident_incident/1549/

It really is spooky to listen to.
[edit]
In the first clip, about 13:00 in, a few minutes after the crash, the controller starts getting rattled and gets himself relieved.
 
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  • #90
I hope DOT/FAA/NTSB review what happened at the airports. Someone at LaGuardia asked someone else to call for a helicopter once they lost the 1549 from radar. They didn't realize that more than one helicopter on the west side of Manhattan had been watching 1549 just after it turned over Manhattan toward GW bridge, and they followed it down. The helicopters were on a different frequency than ATC. There needs to be a way that emergency craft can be dispatched immediately one a plane is going down.

The pilot was fortunate to land where he did, where the ferries and other boats could get on scene within minutes.

What if he had gone down in the marshes just west of the river, which could have happened if he tried to make Teterboro.
 
  • #91
The air traffic controller should be commended. Within seconds he had two possible alternative runaways cleared.
 
  • #92
Unfortunate news story order.
Item 2 - the US air pilot being celebrated in New York after his plane hit a flock of birds.

Following item 1 - an oil company is to face $1M fines an upto 6months in prison when a flock of birds died after landing on a tailings pond.
 
  • #93
Astronuc said:
There needs to be a way that emergency craft can be dispatched immediately one a plane is going down.

This is usually done by the Civil Air Patrol or state police/rescue helicopters and other aircraft in the area.
 
  • #94
In the news here today - they confirmed these were Canadian geese from Labrador.
 
  • #95
Borek said:
In the news here today - they confirmed these were Canadian geese from Labrador.

I suppose that means the TSA will stop you taking geese as carry-on ?
 
  • #96
mgb_phys said:
I suppose that means the TSA will stop you taking geese as carry-on ?

Only geese from Labrador.
 
  • #97
mgb_phys said:
I suppose that means the TSA will stop you taking geese as carry-on ?

Ivan Seeking said:
Only geese from Labrador.

My bet is they won't let you take all geese and ducks, just in case.
 
  • #98
Borek said:
My bet is they won't let you take all geese and ducks, just in case.
And if you are wearing a T-shirt with a picture of duck on it (even Donald), they will require you to remove it or cover it up with another shirt before you are allowed to board.
 
  • #99
Borek said:
In the news here today - they confirmed these were Canadian geese from Labrador.

It's a sad day when Labrador becomes a sponsor of terrorism. Now we have to rename the Labrador Retreiver and I have to stop drinking Laughing Lab.

The number of attacks on US airliners has more than doubled since 2000. Worst is a United Airlines 737 that suffered 29 birdstrikes and one strike by a small deer. That single plane has been attacked in San Francisco; Salt Lake City; San Jose, Calif.; Houston; Denver; Toronto; New Orleans; Chicago and Spokane, Wash.

This deer was apparently rendered harmless to airliners before it had a chance to attack - or else it's a post-attack photo - I'm not sure:
http://www.presidentialufo.com/P1010084.JPG
http://www.presidentialufo.com/P1010083.JPG
http://www.presidentialufo.com/P1010085.JPG
 
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  • #100
Was he trying out for the olympics?
 
  • #101
I believe the deer was hit by a train. Lines like that are usually found along railroad rights of way.

I've hiked along a couple of major rail lines in our area, and I've come across the remains of deer. The bodies were severed and parts were scattered due the force of the impact. There is no give in two or three 200T locomotives pulling 10000T of train at 40-60 mph.

If that line is out in Illinois or Kansas, there's a good chance the train is running at 60+ mph.
 

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