Re: Air Crash
There have been a few ditchings by commercial jet aircraft, but I think this one is the first with no fatalities. I just surfed the net for a minute on the topic - the closest event that I found to this one, was an Indonesian Boeing 737 that ditched with only one fatality.
I used to live about a mile from where the US Airways aircraft entered the water. I was also employed in aviation at the time, and have personally flown aircraft down the Hudson River in that area. The fact that this event ended as it did is amazing. In my opinion, what happened is a strange mixture of bad luck, good luck, and a job very well done by the entire crew of that aircraft.
First, loss of all engines due a bird strike is extremely rare. That's the bad luck. On the flip side, there was a major bit of good luck, in that the aircraft was able to gain enough altitude before total power loss, to be able to glide across the top of Manhattan and the southern portion of the Bronx. I heard a news report this morning that said the aircraft passed over the George Washington Bridge too. If my memory serves me correctly, the GW is about 600 feet above the water at road level, never mind the support towers.
As far as the performance of the pilot, I would simply say "amazing!" I have read that he initially wanted to try to make Teterboro Airport, which does have long enough runways to accomodate an A320. The problem, however, would have been that he didn't have enough altitude to be able to glide that far. Had he tried to do this, he most likely would have crashed in a densely populated area. That being the case, ditching in the Hudson was a very good decision.
I was also surprised that he had flaps and slats deployed for the landing. Whether that was because he never retracted them, or because the ram air turbine (RAT) was deployed to maintain electrical power/hydraulic pressure, and those surfaces were deployed during the descent, I don't know. What I would say, however, is that having flaps and slats allowed the aircraft to touch down at a much lower airspeed, than would have been otherwise possible. In that fact, you have a lot of the reason why this ditching was so successful.
The cabin crew also did a great job in this accident. In such situations, they never seem to get press coverage or thanks, but they are a very essential part of the overall team. I have no doubt that they did a superb job in keeping the passengers calm and focused on what had to be done to get everyone out.
Finally, how about those boat crews? Did they do an amazing job, or what? This whole thing is really incredible to me - to have such a great water landing, followed by ferry boats and the like, arriving at the aircraft in minutes and maintaining a perfect position to recover people from a drifting aircraft, is really something! Somehow, I don't think there was training for that sort of thing in "boat capatin school!" Great job by the mariners too!
