(For a photo gallery on the dramatic event, click here to go to cbcnews.ca)U.S. Airways flight 1549 took off from New York's La Guardia Airport shortly after 3 p.m on Thursday afternoon for what should have been a short, routine flight to Charlotte, N.C. But within second of being airborne the pilot reported trouble.
Apparently the plane took a "double hit" from birds and the pilot reported that he was going to try to make an emergency landing in New Jersey; he didn't. Instead he ditched the Airbus 320 in the nearby Hudson River, sending frightened passengers into panic.
Within moments of the impact New York City's emergency services went into action. People were scrambling out of the airliner to save their lives. They climbed onto the partially submerged wings and some, wearing life jackets, jumped into the frigid water hoping to make it to land.
Tugboats, water taxis and a helicopter joined the rescue effort and within two hours they had moved all 155 passengers and crew to safety.
Passengers recalled the horror as they heard the call to "brace for impact", fearing the worst. They called it a miracle. Almost everyone escaped with minor injuries and about half of them were sent to local hospitals for treatment for hypothermia. The worst injury was a woman's pair of broken legs.
Mayor Michael Bloomberg praised the pilot who not only 'landed' safely in the water, but remained on board and walked walked the length of the plane twice after the crash to make sure everyone was OK; he was the last to leave.
"It would appear that the pilot did a masterful job of landing the plane in the river, and then making sure everybody got out," the mayor said.
"This is a story of heroes, something straight out of a movie script," Bloomberg said as he honoured rescuers the day after. "But if it had been a movie, people probably wouldn't have
believed it. It was too good to be true."
This is how Associated Press reporter Jennifer Peltz described the scene ahead of the splashdown:
"The plane skirted skyscrapers and threaded through crowded airspace, horrifying spectators on the streets below. With no working engines, it had to clear the heavily travelled George
Washington Bridge. Its landing strip was a stretch of the Hudson River full of commuter ferries. Had it not splashlanded in the river, the plane could have gone down in densely packed
neighbourhoods in New York City or northern New Jersey.
"The abundance of possible catastrophic scenarios was clearly on the mind of the pilot, who told controllers that the jet was "too low, too slow" and near too many tall buildings to reach any
airport...
"The pilot, Chesley Sullenberger, could hardly have been better prepared. The 58-year-old former fighter pilot was named best aviator in his class at the Air Force Academy, had flown for US Airways for 29 years and mastered glider flying. He also has investigated air disasters, even studying how airline crews behave in a crisis...Sullenberger headed for the river, warning passengers to brace for impact and telling air traffic controllers simply: "We're gonna be in the Hudson."
"Sullenberger pulled off the landing in textbook fashion, though experts say many factors, including communication among the pilots and flight attendants, were as important as sheer skill.
Sullenberger told investigators he made a point of landing near Manhattan's ferry terminals, to increase the chance of rescue."
No comments:
Post a Comment