First off, I haven’t seen the movie. I had wanted to see it, but the reviews made it sound like Clint Eastwood couldn’t keep his politics out of it. Maybe I’ll catch it on Netflix sometime.
I’ve never been a fan of the term “Miracle on the Hudson”. It seems to me that the bar for “miracle” has been lowered quite a bit since the days of parting the Red Sea. Probably by the same people who see images of the Virgin Mary in their pancakes.
To me, a miracle would have been the angels descending from heaven and gently carrying US Airways Flight 1549 back to LaGuardia. Or maybe someplace nicer than LaGuardia, like…..anywhere! If you’ve ever endured the pit of despair that is LGA you’ll know what I mean.
In my opinion what happened that day was a highly experienced crew, led by a superb Captain, flying a plane that worked the way it was supposed to, made all the right moves.
In case you’ve been living in an underground bunker for the last decade, here’s a recap of the event:
On January 15, 2009 US Airways flight 1549 departed LaGuardia airport on its way to Charlotte.
Roughly three minutes into the flight they struck a flock of large winged rats Canada geese, which caused a loss of thrust from both engines.
This is where I try to imagine myself in that situation. Climbing out of a busy airport like LaGuardia I’d be worried about: flying the instrument departure, running the checklist, watching for other airplanes, and listening to the New York air traffic controller talking like he’s running a farm auction:
“DeltafiveohonecomerightheadingtwoonezeroJetBluesixtwosixcontactNewYorkcenter…...”
On top of all that I have to force myself not to sight-see whenever I’m flying in or out of New York.
“Oooh! I can see the Statue of Liberty!”
Now I can tell you what I’m probably not thinking about at that time, and that’s “What would I do if we lost both engines right about now?”
I see that as perhaps a gap in our training. We normally practice losing an engine right at V1 (go/no-go speed). Every six months I go into the simulator and dutifully practice that scenario. We don’t normally simulate an engine failure shortly after takeoff. We also don’t routinely practice a dual engine failure since it’s such an extremely rare event.
This was uncharted territory. In short, this crew went from routine to having a very bad day in just a few seconds.
As you read this, keep in mind that the entire incident from bird strike to ditching lasted approximately three minutes. It’s easy for me to sit here at my desk and critique them. I wasn’t there, they were. The crew of 1549 had a very short time to make the most important decision of their lives. As I like to say, they had the rest of their lives to figure it out.
The aircraft was an Airbus A320-214 powered by CFM-56 engines. These are essentially the same engines we had on the KC-135R and also the same engines you’ll find on most Boeing 737 models. It’s a great engine but it won’t eat a flock of geese.
Keep in mind that I have never flown the A320. My experience is with the older A300/310. The main difference being that the Airbus 300 is much larger and has conventional flight controls with a yoke.
If any A320 drivers want to chime in and tell me what an idiot I am, go ahead. I’m just an unfrozen caveman B-52 driver, I don’t understand your fancy side sticks and fly by wire controls.
I did manage to get my hands on an A320 systems manual and checklist. The A320 systems, other than the fly-by-wire stuff, seem to be pretty similar to the A300. It looks like Airbus simplified them a bit when they built the 320. The 320 does some things automatically that we had to do manually in the 300.
The A320 has three hydraulic systems: Green, Blue and Yellow. The Green system is the “workhorse” and powers the flight controls, landing gear, flaps and brakes. The other two systems primarily power the flight controls. Each control surface has three hydraulic servos, one for each system.
Simplified schematic of the A320 hydraulic systemSince you can’t fly the A320 (or most large airliners) without hydraulics, there is a lot of redundancy built into the systems. There are at least two, and usually three, of anything important.
Engine driven pumps power the Green and Yellow systems respectively. The Blue system is powered by an AC electric pump. The Yellow system can also be powered by an AC electric pump. The Green and Yellow systems can power each other via a Power Transfer Unit (PTU).
The PTU will sometimes run on the ground. If you’ve ever ridden on an Airbus and heard something that sounds like a large dog barking, that’s the Power Transfer Unit. The next time your seat-mate asks “What’s that noise?” you can impress them with your systems knowledge.
In summary, each hydraulic system has a backup and as long as one system is working, you can fly the jet.
Something I didn’t know before: you can even fly the A320 without electrical power as long as you have hydraulics. There is a direct mechanical control for the rudder and stabilizer trim. People have even landed the simulator that way. Sounds “sporty”.
If you’re sharp you may have noticed that I didn’t mention the backup for the Blue hydraulic system. That’s the RAT or Ram Air Turbine. The RAT is essentially a little wind turbine that is spring-loaded to pop out into the slipstream if the aircraft senses a loss of both engines. It can also be manually deployed by the pilots if need be.
The RAT has a hydraulic pump that can power the Blue hydraulic system as long as the plane maintains at least 150 knots of airspeed. It also has an emergency generator that can power some of the essential electrical systems.
The RAT on what looks to be an A319 which is similar to the A320.I would expect the plane to handle sluggishly if the RAT was the only thing providing hydraulic power. Only one hydraulic servo would be working on each control surface and only one spoiler panel on each wing would be powered.
Time to set the stage. Flight 1549 was at around 2700 feet of altitude, just north of the George Washington Bridge when they hit the birds. They had just finished “cleaning up” the aircraft after takeoff so the landing gear and flaps were up. The First Officer was flying, and the Captain had just completed the After Takeoff checklist.
The NTSB investigation found that both engines had ingested roughly 8 pounds of bird each and had sustained “core damage”.
The words “core damage” are telling. It’s not uncommon for a high-bypass turbofan to “eat” a small bird and just spit it out the back. As long as it just goes through the fan section, it may not do any damage.
If, however, it goes through the inner part of the engine, where the compressor and turbine blades are spinning at 20,000 or more times per minute, the damage will probably be catastrophic.
That was the case here. Both engines had suffered internal damage to where they were not going to produce thrust and a restart would not be possible. Keep in mind that the crew had no way of knowing just how badly the engines were damaged.
I have gone through the NTSB transcripts of the cockpit voice recorder data and cleaned it up a bit. You can find the NTSB report online if you want to read it.
Notes:
Capt = Captain Sullenberger
F/O = First Officer Skiles
Cockpit = Cockpit Voice Recorder microphone
| Capt | after takeoff checklist complete. |
| Capt | birds |
| F/O | whoa |
| Cockpit | [sound of thump/thud(s) followed by shuddering sound] |
| F/O | oh #. |
| Capt | oh yeah. |
| Cockpit | [sound similar to decrease in engine noise/frequency begins] |
| F/O | uh oh. |
| Capt | we got one rol- both of 'em rolling back. |
| Cockpit | [rumbling sound begins and continues until approximately 15:28:08] |
| Capt | ignition, start. |
| Capt | I'm starting the APU. |
| Capt | my aircraft. |
| F/O | your aircraft. |
| Capt | get the QRH... [Quick Reference Handbook] loss of thrust on both engines. |
By now they were right around 3000 feet and down to 194 knots airspeed. Our normal rule of thumb is you will travel 3 miles for every thousand feet of altitude. That, however, is with two engines producing idle thrust rather than two dead engines and the RAT deployed.
The Airbus QRH says 2 miles per thousand feet, but that’s at the recommended 300 knots for an air-start. They were going closer to 200. I’m making an educated guess that their best-glide speed, depending on weight, might have somewhere between 200 and 220.
The Airbus actually tells you the best glide speed by displaying a green circle on the airspeed tape. We called that the “green-dot” airspeed.
Green Dot is best lift to drag ratio in a clean configuration.Depending on their speed, I estimate they had somewhere between 6 and 10 miles before they came down on something.
They didn’t have a lot of time to make a decision and there would have been oh just a few minor distractions.
When I read this transcript, I see a very decisive Captain. The first, and one of the most important things he did that day, was to start the Auxiliary Power Unit. This step would normally be accomplished about halfway through the Dual Engine Failure checklist. If they’d waited that long it may not have had time to start before ditching. I forget how long it takes the APU to start but I’d guess somewhere between 30 seconds and a minute.
The first item on Dual Engine Failure is “Land ASAP”. I find this amusing. What else exactly are you going to do without engines?The APU is a little baby jet engine, usually located in the tail, that provides electrical power and air under pressure. Normally we use it to run our systems on the ground and to start the main engines.
With the APU on line they would have AC electrical power, plus full pressure to at least two (Blue and Yellow) hydraulic systems from the electric pumps. In addition they would have had full instrumentation.
The bottom line is they were now flying a “full up” Airbus, minus the engines of course, rather than a crippled one. Sometimes it’s the little things that make the difference.
That side stick would take some getting used to, but it makes for a nice “clean” cockpit setup.From a CRM (Cockpit Resource Management) standpoint the Captain took control of the aircraft and the radios and assigned the emergency procedures checklist to the First Officer. He could have done it the other way, but probably better to have the most experienced person flying the jet in this case.
Most importantly, he assigned clear roles so that there was no confusion. That’s a big deal when all the bells and whistles start going off in the cockpit.
With the First Officer busy trying to restart the engines, the Captain has to make a decision. Where to go?
Listening to the transcript, they had already started making a turn back towards LGA.
The controller then offers RWY 13, which was the closest thing to a “straight shot” back to the airport. They might have made 13, but they would have to fly over a lot of obstructions: tall buildings, bridges and such. Then they would have to factor in gravity extending the landing gear (takes time) and what the extended landing gear would do to their glide ratio.
This is my best guess at what a return to RWY 13 at LGA would have looked like. Any of the other runways would have required flying much further to line up for an approach.This would also mean flying over the most heavily populated area in the country. If it doesn’t work you’re either making a large crater in the Bronx or you’re going into Flushing Bay with your gear down (bad).
The controller then offers RWY 31, which would have required them to fly even further. He may have misunderstood what was meant by “unable”. There is understandably some confusion here. There’s no way they would have made RWY 31, which would have required flying past the airport and then turning back to the northwest.
Finally the controller offers RWY 04, which would require flying south of the airport and back northwest. Not as bad as RWY 31 but still probably wouldn’t have worked.
The Captain then asks about Teterboro, over on the New Jersey side of the river. For those not familiar with it, Teterboro is a small airport that is very popular with the corporate-jet crowd. By this time landing at TEB was probably not an option. An attempt to land there would also have required flying over a heavily populated area.
Best guess as to what an approach to RWY 24 at Teterboro would look like.Notes:
The “Cactus” call sign was a legacy of the US Air/America West merger.
NY = New York Departure Controller
GPWS = Ground Proximity Warning System
This entire conversation took just under two minutes. During that time they lost roughly 2000 feet of altitude. The entire time the First Officer was running the dual engine failure checklist and attempting to restart the engines.
Now in a perfect world, the engines would have given them some indication that “we’re damaged beyond repair and we ain’t coming back”. That way they wouldn’t have wasted their time and attention trying to restart them.
This being the real world, it probably looked like the engines might restart. They may have “lit off” but with the cores damaged they were never going to produce thrust.
The crew had no way of knowing this.
When the GPWS says “one thousand” (feet) they have maybe three miles of glide distance left as long as there are no obstacles. At this point, had they tried for LaGuardia or Teterboro they’d never have made it. Just turning the aircraft would have taken up most of their remaining altitude.
| Capt | mayday mayday mayday. uh this is uh Cactus fifteen thirty nine hit birds, we've lost thrust (in/on) both engines we're turning back towards LaGuardia. |
| NY | ok uh, you need to return to LaGuardia? turn left heading of uh two two zero. |
| Capt | two two zero. |
| NY | Cactus fifteen twenty nine, if we can get it for you do you want to try to land runway one three? |
| Capt | we're unable. we may end up in the Hudson. |
| NY | arright Cactus fifteen forty nine its gonna be left traffic for runway three one. |
| Capt | unable. |
| NY | okay, what do you need to land? |
| NY | Cactus fifteen (twenty) nine runway four's available if you wanna make left traffic to runway four. |
| Capt | I'm not sure we can make any runway. uh what's over to our right anything in New Jersey maybe Teterboro? |
| NY | ok yeah, off your right side is Teterboro airport. |
| NY | you wanna try and go to Teterboro? |
| Capt | yes. |
| PA | this is the Captain brace for impact. |
| GPWS | one thousand |
| NY | Cactus fifteen twenty nine turn right two eight zero, you can land runway one at Teterboro. |
| Capt | we can't do it. |
| NY | kay which runway would you like at Teterboro? |
| Capt | we're gonna be in the Hudson. |
| NY | I'm sorry say again Cactus? |
I would like to think that I’d have made the same decision but I can’t say because I wasn’t there.
Having made a number of flights in and out of the New York area, I can say that LaGuardia and Teterboro would have looked far away with a lot of tall “stuff” in between. That big wide smooth stretch of Hudson river probably looked very inviting.
As they prepare to ditch, the controller offers Newark RWY 29, seven miles away. Might as well have been on the moon. They never had a shot at making Newark.
By this point they’re already committed to ditching and they don’t respond. “Aviate, Navigate, Communicate” as the saying goes.
Notes:
I cut out most of the GPWS messages. Roughly every three seconds the GPWS says “too low, terrain” or “pull up”. The TCAS also calls “Traffic!” a couple of times. Basically, all of the bells, whistles and automated voices in the cockpit would have been a huge distraction to the crew.
| F/O | no relight. |
| Capt | ok lets go put the flaps out, put the flaps out. |
| F/O | flaps out? |
| GPWS | pull up. pull up. pull up. pull up. pull up. pull up. |
| F/O | got flaps out. |
| F/O | two hundred fifty feet in the air. |
| F/O | hundred and seventy knots. |
| F/O | got no power on either one? try the other one. |
| Capt | try the other one. |
| F/O | hundred and fifty knots. |
| F/O | got flaps two, you want more? |
| Capt | no lets stay at two. |
| Capt | got any ideas? |
| F/O | actually not. |
| Capt | we're gonna brace. |
The transcript ends five seconds later at 15:30:43
I have to admit I laughed at “got any ideas?” - “actually not”. Sounds like something I might have said.
A couple of points here:
The dual engine failure checklist assumes that the engine failure occurs at altitude. If it happens at cruise altitude, you’re going to have roughly 30 minutes to sort things out. Hopefully you can get at least one restarted in that time or find a decent place to land.
Ditching a jet airliner is an incredibly rare event. Since 1945 I think it’s been done maybe five times. Prior to this event, the extent of my training was to watch a video about how to ditch the aircraft.
Let’s look at the A320 ditching checklist. I circled what I thought was the most important item. If they had not started the APU, they would have needed to maintain at least 140 knots of airspeed for the RAT to function. I’m guessing most pilots would pad that speed a bit, since if you go below it you’ll lose flight controls. So let’s say without the APU they would have hit the water at 150 knots.
Since energy is a function of velocity squared, they would have hit the water a heck of a lot harder at 150 versus their actual speed of 125.
A320 ditching checklistThe A320 ditching certification criteria assumed that engine power was available and thus a lower rate of descent than what was encountered. This chart compares the Airbus test data with US Airways 1549.
| 145,505 | 151,017 |
| +11 | +9.5 |
| 118 | 125 |
| -1 | -3.5 |
| 210 | 750 |
They came pretty close to the airspeed and pitch attitude. Since they were slightly heavier, the faster airspeed makes sense.
The big difference is the descent rate. Without engines they were coming down a lot faster than the test scenario. Their glideslope and descent rate at touchdown are close to what you would get if you flew a normal final approach all the way to the runway and didn’t flare at the end.
This would be a difficult maneuver because we don’t normally land with:
- No landing gear. I’ve never landed a “clean” airplane and have no idea how it would respond.
- Such a reduced flap setting. We’re used to having a lot more drag.
- That high of a pitch attitude. A normal approach in a 757 is about 2.5 degrees nose up. I haven’t flown the A300 in a while but it was similar. Having the nose up 11 degrees would be very unnatural. You would have very poor forward visibility with the nose that high. It would be difficult to see what was directly in front of you.
- Zero thrust. Even at idle a running jet engine still produces a fair bit of thrust. They would have been coming down faster than normal.
Once again the APU helped because the fly-by-wire system stayed in “Normal Law”, meaning the plane at least handled the way it was supposed to. If they had been in one of the degraded control modes it would have been one more complication that they didn’t need to deal with.
Most importantly they kept the wings level. A couple degrees of bank at touchdown could have resulted in a wingtip digging in resulting in a cartwheel and mass casualties.
From the NTSB report:
Attaining the touchdown flight condition targets is an exceptionally difficult flight maneuver, and pilots cannot be expected to conduct the maneuver proficiently when the airplane has no engine power. in a flight simulator in daylight conditions, the touchdown flight condition targets were only achieved once out of 12 attempts, even by pilots who were aware of the importance of maintaining sufficient airspeed, were fully expecting the dual-engine failure to occur, and knew that their failure to accomplish the maneuver would not be life-threatening.
I got to practice this scenario in the 757 simulator and I can tell you that the last 50 feet is tough. My water landing would have been survivable, but let’s just say I’m no Sully. The chickens would have definitely gotten their feathers ruffled.
The NTSB made a point that the ditching checklist calls for Flaps 3 but the Captain elected to use Flaps 2. I doubt there’s a big difference between the two flap settings. Flaps 3 would have let them fly a little slower, at the expense of more drag. In general the lower (smaller number) flap settings mostly add lift and the higher flap settings mostly add drag. The Captain stated he was concerned about having enough energy left to flare the airplane. The NTSB seemed to think that this was a reasonable assumption.
Position 3 would add a lot more drag but not much extra lift over Position 2.The NTSB concludes that the captain’s decision to use flaps 2 for the ditching, based on his experience and perception of the situation, was reasonable and consistent with the limited civilian industry and military guidance that was available regarding forced landings of large aircraft without power.
Either way it worked. Tough to argue with success.
One passenger described the impact as being no worse than moderate turbulence.
Much has been made of the “ditching switch” on the A320. We had the same thing on the A300. Basically it turns off the A/C packs and closes all the little inlet and outflow doors to seal the fuselage. The crew of 1549 did not use the ditching switch but it wouldn’t have made a difference. The force of the water impact tore bigger holes in the fuselage than any of those little doors. It also popped the lower cargo doors open.
I’d still have pushed it just because I always wanted to push that thing. “Let’s see what this does….”
Despite hitting at over three times the certified descent rate, the plane held together for the most part. The left engine detached, but that’s not surprising. Despite what some people think, Airbus actually builds a pretty sturdy jet.
I have read conflicting opinions on how the Airbus fly-by-wire system may have aided or impaired the water landing. Sully commented that the “envelope protections” built into the system made it difficult for him to fully flare the aircraft.
On the other hand, operating in Normal Law would have had a couple of benefits. One benefit is that it would have prevented stalling the aircraft. Every ditching procedure I have seen warns not to “stall it in”.
More importantly, I think it may have helped keep the wings level. The way Normal Law works, as I understand it, is moving the side-stick commands a certain flight attitude. Once you center the stick, the computer dutifully holds whatever it was that you commanded. As 1549 plowed into the water, the last command would have been “wings level” and it would have worked its little electronic heart out to hold that.
Airbus side stick controller.Let’s talk about the crew. Sully is your basic steely-eyed sky god. Air Force Academy grad, although I won’t hold that against him. He must have graduated near the top of his pilot training class since he got fighters. He flew the F-4 back when the F-4 was the thing to fly. Started flying for airlines in 1980. If you count flying gliders at the Academy he had 40 years and around 20,000 hours of flying experience at the time of the incident.
First Officer Skiles was also highly experienced with over 15,000 hours of flying experience. For perspective, that’s more than double my 7,000 hours. He had been at US Airways since 1986. US Airways hadn’t hired in a very long time and was a very “senior” crew force. He only had 37 hours in the A320. My guess is he had just upgraded to the aircraft since the NTSB report stated that he’d had a simulator check in December and a line check a week before the incident.
The three flight attendants had been trained in 1970, 1980 and 1982. The most junior flight attendant on that aircraft had 27 years of experience.
I realize I’m guilty of mostly talking about the pilots, because I are one. Fortunately I have a neighbor who is a retired flight attendant. She was kind enough to give me her input on flight 1549.
The flight attendants would have still been in their jump-seats at the time of the bird strike. All they would have realized is that it suddenly got quiet when the engines quit. They would have had limited visibility from where they were sitting, so while they would have known something was amiss, they wouldn’t have known if they were coming down on land or water.
After the impact, they would have had to quickly assess the situation and start the evacuation. I cannot stress this enough, however. The primary job of the flight attendants is to get everybody’s butt off that airplane in an emergency. Everything else they do is just icing on the cake.
Within 15 seconds of impact the flight attendants were already getting the doors open and passengers off the aircraft. It takes me longer than that to get my seatbelt off.
I’m not sure exactly how long it took to get everyone off the jet. For certification, the FAA requires the flight attendants to evacuate the aircraft in 90 seconds using half the exits.
The fact that it was filling up with water probably added some incentive, but still they did an incredible job.
Normally in a water landing one of the flight attendants was to have blocked the rear exit door. By then one of the passengers had already tried to crack the door, and water was coming in. The plane would have taken on water either way, but now it was coming in faster.
A few passengers forgot their life vests, but the Captain and F/O grabbed some extras for them.
Fortunately, this particular A320 was setup for over-water operations and had slide/rafts instead of just escape slides. This allowed passengers to get into the rafts and stay out of the frigid water. Standard slides would have required the passengers to jump into the water and hang onto the slide for flotation. Remember, this was January and the water temperature was somewhere between 36 and 40 degrees.
The Captain and F/O famously checked the plane to make sure everybody got out. Something us box-haulers don’t have to worry about. If I go back there it’s because I’m looking for any boxes labeled “ACME Inflatable Boat Company”.
A few tips for a water evacuation:
Hopefully you read the safety pamphlet and didn’t sleep through the emergency procedures briefing. I’ve been doing this a very long time and I still read that pamphlet, every time.
Remember your life vest.
Don’t inflate your life vest inside the airplane or you won’t be able to fit through the door (bad). I don’t believe anyone on 1549 did this, another testament to the cabin crew.
Don’t jump into the 36 degree water unless you have no other choice or you want to re-enact the last scene from Titanic.
I need to put in a word for New York TRACON (Air Traffic Control). These people are fantastic at what they do. They cut you zero slack, mind you, but they’re damn good. The guy that runs the early AM departures out of Newark knows how to put just the right amount of condescension in his voice to let you know you’ve screwed up (speaking from experience). Still, if I was in trouble these are the folks I’d want on the other end of that radio.
Even before 1549 hit the water, they were already starting to coordinate the emergency response with the Port Authority. The following was a conversation between the “cab coordinator” at LaGuardia and JFK.
3:28:53 p.m. La Guardia control coordinator: O.K., listen, ah, we’re going to tell you something important. It’s Cactus 1549. We see somebody low level in the Hudson river below 400. O.K.? You’re going to need to, um, alert the New York and New Jersey Port Authority police over there.
3:30:48 p.m. La Guardia: Get me a Police Department helicopter. Have you got one on your frequency?
J.F.K.: Say again.
La Guardia: Get me a Police Department helicopter if you got one on your frequency right now.
J.F.K.: We don’t have one right now. but we will make a call.
La Guardia: You get anybody you send them right into the Lincoln Tunnel. We had a Cactus Airbus go down in the water.
If you’re going to land in the water, there are worse places to do it than the Hudson just off of midtown Manhattan. Flight 1549 came down roughly abeam the Intrepid Air and Space Museum, just north of the Lincoln Tunnel. That’s significant because it just so happens to be where several of the ferry routes cross.
My rough approximation of Flight 1549 ditching location.Within four minutes of ditching, the first ferry was alongside and starting to rescue passengers. Remember, the water temperature was somewhere around 36 degrees and the air temperature was 20 degrees. Unless you’re wearing an exposure suit, you’ll be looking like Leonardo DiCaprio in a short time.
Between the Ferries, FDNY, NYPD and US Coast Guard, they had everyone safe within 20 minutes of ditching.
This was taken fairly late in the rescue operation, as the jet is mostly submerged by this time.When the incident was reenacted in the simulator, it was determined that they might have made it to LaGuardia or Teterboro if they had done it immediately after hitting the birds. Even then the test pilots only had a 50% success rate. That means best case there was a 50% chance it would have ended catastrophically.
Remember, the test pilots knew it was coming and would have already had a plan ready. We call that “expectation bias” in the industry. Plus they knew they weren’t going to die if they screwed up. We try to treat the simulator like it’s the real thing, but it’s not.
When a more realistic 35 second delay for decision making was added to the test, they didn’t make it back to LaGuardia. To me even 35 seconds sounds optimistic.
The NTSB report summarized it:
The one simulator flight that took into account real-world considerations (a return to LGA runway 13 was attempted after a 35-second delay) was not successful. Therefore, the NTSB concludes that the captain’s decision to ditch on the Hudson River rather than attempting to land at an airport provided the highest probability that the accident would be survivable. (emphasis mine)
In summary, this was a highly experienced crew that handled an extremely challenging situation in a highly professional manner. Everyone from the cockpit crew to Air Traffic Control to the rescuers played a part.
Was there luck involved? Sure. On the bad side, a flock of geese tried to kamikaze them. On the good side: it was daylight and they had clear skies and light winds. Had this happened at night or on a day with low clouds or fog, they might not have pulled it off. Had it happened a minute earlier, they might not have even made the Hudson.
OK, time for me to put my pilot’s union hat on for a minute and make my pitch.
Sully and Skiles were both highly experienced, highly trained, dedicated professionals. If you had to sit through an inflight emergency, these are the kind of people you’d want up front.
If you want a Sully or a Skiles (or even a Kong) they don’t come cheap. If you want to pay $36,000 a year so you can sell tickets to the West Coast for the price of bus fare, you’ll have to set your sights a lot lower.
Top talent costs money. That never seems to be an issue when we’re talking about upper management.
After this incident, I think most of us in the industry asked ourselves: “How would I have handled this if I’d been there?”
Having put myself in the position of the First Officer, I think it might have gone something like this:
| Capt | after takeoff checklist complete. |
| Capt | birds |
| F/O | whoa |
| Cockpit | [sound of thump/thud(s) followed by shuddering sound] |
| F/O | oh #. |
| Capt | oh yeah. |
| Cockpit | [sound similar to decrease in engine noise/frequency begins] |
| F/O | [sound of individual shrieking like a little girl] |
| Capt | we got one rol- both of 'em rolling back. |
| Cockpit | [rumbling sound begins and continues until approximately 15:28:08] |
| F/O | ohmygodwe’regonnadiewe’regonnadiewe’regonnadie! |
| F/O | [sound of individual curling up into a fetal position] |
| F/O | [sound of individual sucking thumb] |
| F/O | [sound of individual quietly sobbing to himself] |
| F/O | [sobbing increases in volume and continues until 15:30:43] |
| Cockpit | [sound of cockpit window being thrown open and First Officer swimming for shore so fast you could water-ski behind him.] |