[sjdflghd]

Damn European jets.

Ill fly on a Boeing thanks. Bird strikes wouldnt bring a Boeing down.

Thankfully the pilot was an experienced glider pilot.

[Kafuuil]

Bird strikes wouldnt bring a Boeing down.

What makes that so?

[avaissema]

Damn European jets.

Ill fly on a Boeing thanks. Bird strikes wouldnt bring a Boeing down.

Same engines are on the B737 & US Air A320. (CFM-56)

[RemiVedia]

What makes that so?

You're too smart to actually expect a logical answer aren't you?

Same engines are on the B737 & US Air A320. (CFM-56)

[lollypop]

Wow amazing story! Props to the pilot and co pilot who saved 150 lives with a sucessful water ditch (especially the pilot who went up and down the aisle twice before saving himself to make sure every passenger was off the plane)! Props to the flight attendants who did what they have trainined very hard to prepare for the situation everyone hopes never happens getting everyone off a downed plane. Props to the ferry and boat operators who institutionally went into what could have been a very dangerous situation to help get people!!!

[aparneioninny]

Has anyone been down to where the plane is secured? I think it would be amazing to see that in person, not because I am a sick morbid person, but because of how surreal it is. Seeing things like this on the news, looking like a movie it is hard to see how real it is... ... To see a friggin Airbus sticking out of the water in the Hudson River! Crazy!

[gogoleanylinkfo]

Best I could do this morning with all the hubbub...

[Dkavtbek]

I saw it last night as they secured it to the seawall in BPC. Absolutely surreal.

[DaleJrGirl]

All I can say is...

YOU GO BOY!!!

[VtLe67WR]

^He and his crew deserve a tickertape parade.

[Theorsell]

^ ...... with stale peanuts instead of ticker tape.

[Cinzomzm]

Its a wonder that planes like this are allowed into the sky. Landings like this are very uncommon, but twin bird strikes are not so uncommon.

The A320 is an aircraft that should be redesigned (engines, number of engine points) before the next landing isnt so smooth. The passengers of this plane are at least owed that consideration.

And yes the 737 too. Otherwise the Boeings are a lot safer, and generally dont seize up and fall from the sky quicker than it takes Germany to invade France!

[MeatteCen]

twin bird strikes are not so uncommon What defines a twin bird strike?

The A320 is an aircraft that should be redesigned (engines, number of engine points) What is an engine point?

and generally dont seize up and fall from the sky quicker than it takes Germany to invade France! LOL!

[casinobonbiner]

Has anyone been down to where the plane is secured? I think it would be amazing to see that in person, not because I am a sick morbid person, but because of how surreal it is. Seeing things like this on the news, looking like a movie it is hard to see how real it is... ... To see a friggin Airbus sticking out of the water in the Hudson River! Crazy!

It's pretty much right outside my building and I went down there before the police closed it off, and yes, it is a fairly absurd thing to see. Standing above it on the promenade it's quite unbelievable that you can fit over 150 people into a (relatively speaking) that small vehicle.

Gonna be lazy and just link some of the pics I posted on Facebook. Unfortunately, we were politely asked to leave by the NYPD so I didn't really get too many good photo ops, and iPhone is only so much for a camera.

http://photos-g.ak.fbcdn.net/photos-...07846_2566.jpg
http://photos-d.ak.fbcdn.net/photos-...07843_8730.jpg
http://photos-a.ak.fbcdn.net/photos-...807848_323.jpg
http://photos-g.ak.fbcdn.net/photos-...07862_2712.jpg

On a side note, how can it be that Tennenbaum isn't banned from these forums yet? Has he ever made a single post not trying to start flame bait or drama?

[pokerbonuscod]

Why would you want to ban him? He spices the place up a bit.

[spamkillerf]

January 17, 2009

In a Split Second, a Pilot Becomes a Hero Years in the Making

By RAY RIVERA

Capt. Chesley B. Sullenberger III had just performed a remarkable feat of flying. Some were calling it a miracle. But there he stood, calmly, inside the glass waiting room at the New York Waterway terminal on Pier 79, speaking to police officials. His fine gray hair was unruffled, and his navy blue pilot’s uniform had barely a wrinkle.

“His tie wasn’t even loosened,” said Edward Skyler, a deputy mayor of New York City, who stood nearby.

Michael A. L. Balboni, the state’s deputy secretary for public safety, worked his way through the room to introduce himself. He shook the pilot’s hand, looked him in the eye and thanked him for a job done brilliantly: the precise, soft, lifesaving landing of a 50-ton jetliner in the Hudson River.

“He said to me, in the most unaffected, humble way, he says, ‘That’s what we’re trained to do,’ ” Mr. Balboni said. “No boasting, no emotion, no nothing.”

While the world clamored Friday for his story, and government leaders applauded his professionalism, and fan pages sprang up on the Internet, Captain Sullenberger retained his focus, avoiding the limelight as he awaited an interview Saturday with federal investigators studying what went wrong with US Airways Flight 1549.

Heroes are often born in an instant, the split second it takes to recognize a pending disaster and react, the blink of an eye it takes a Wesley Autrey to throw himself under an subway train to save a man fallen on the tracks.

In Captain Sullenberger’s case, it was years in the making.

Captain Sullenberger, 57, the US Airways pilot who safely brought the wounded Airbus A320 passenger plane to rest on the Hudson on Thursday, had been with the airline for nearly 30 years and was steeped in the safety side of the industry.

He had worked with federal aviation officials investigating crashes and improving training and methods for evacuating aircraft in emergencies. He got his pilot’s license as a teenager, flew F-4 Phantoms for the Air Force and was a 1973 graduate of the Air Force Academy, where he received the Outstanding Cadet in Airmanship Award, given to the top flier in each graduating class.

He even flew gliders, which is sort of what he was left with Thursday when something, perhaps birds, knocked out both engines in his plane.

Many people, from the first officer to members of the flight crew, from the passengers to the civilian and city rescue crews who converged on the craft to save them, earned accolades on Thursday. But Captain Sullenberger’s efforts, like twice checking the soaked cabin for stragglers before fleeing the sinking plane himself, emerged as singularly selfless leadership of a sort that seemed so removed from things like Ponzi schemes and subprime mortgages, corporate bailouts and deflected blame.

“If it wasn’t for him, I wouldn’t be here today,” said Mary Berkwits, a passenger from Stallings, N.C. “He was just wonderful.”

Another passenger, Nick Gamache, a software salesman from Raleigh, N.C., said he was the “picture of calm.”

“I mean, he was directing people to get on the raft,” Mr. Gamache said. “Then I saw him in the terminal. That’s where I was like, ‘Thank you, you just saved all our lives.’ ”

Howard J. Rubenstein, the public relations guru, called Captain Sullenberger a “publicist’s dream,” and envisioned lucrative book deals, movie pitches and product endorsements in his future.

“He’s got 150 people out there and their families out promoting him,” he said.

He is also a boon for an airline that has filed for bankruptcy twice in recent years and has been plagued by publicity nightmares. Two Christmases ago, US Airways lost 75,000 bags, some not found for months. Last year it became the first airline to charge for coffee, tea and bottled water.

Perhaps only in a coincidence, the airline’s share price shot up 13 percent Friday.

Captain Sullenberger fielded congratulatory phone calls from President Bush and President-elect Barack Obama on Friday, but mostly stayed secluded somewhere in the city. He did not attend a ceremony at City Hall, where Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg said his actions “inspired people around the city, and millions more around the world.”

The airline would not discuss his whereabouts or how he spent the day.

Friends, relatives and colleagues described Captain Sullenberger as even-tempered and unassuming. “He wouldn’t take easily to being called a hero,” said Jim Walberg, a family friend.

At Pier 79 on Thursday, while others huddled in thermal blankets, he stood without one while talking to detectives and aviation officials. One official there said Captain Sullenberger mentioned to an officer that one of his priorities was to call his wife and cancel a dinner reservation.

On Friday in Danville, Calif., 40 miles east of San Francisco, the quiet cul-de-sac where the Sullenbergers reside was abuzz with television and newspaper journalists. Lorrie Sullenberger, the wife, along with two daughters, a cat and a yellow Labrador retriever named Twinkle, has mostly been in seclusion since the accident, still shaken by the close call, said many neighbors, and looking forward to the pilot’s return.

Ms. Sullenberger stopped briefly to talk to reporters on her lawn as she ushered her daughters off to school Friday morning.

“My husband has said over years that it is highly unlikely for any pilot to have an incident in his career, let alone something like this,” Ms. Sullenberger said. “So I was stunned when he called and said there’s been an incident, and even then I thought maybe it was a tug that maybe had bumped the airplane. Your mind never goes to something like this.”

Jake Brown, a neighbor, said Captain Sullenberger’s feat was no surprise to those who knew him.

“He is someone who walks into a room and you know he is in charge,” said Mr. Brown.

Captain Sullenberger grew up in Denison, Tex., a town of about 23,000 on the Oklahoma border where his street was named for his mother’s family, the Hannas.

His father was a dentist. His mother taught grade school. Both are deceased.

His only sibling, Mary Wilson, said that even as a boy, Captain Sullenberger showed a meticulous attention for detail. He would build model aircraft carriers with tiny planes, careful to paint every last component.

“He’s very friendly,” she said, “but when it comes to being a pilot, that comes second.”

Ms. Wilson said her brother might have become interested in flying from listening to stories of his father’s Navy service. His high school friends say his passion came from watching jets from the now-defunct Perrin Air Force Base roar through the big skies over his home. In his teens, when most of his peers were learning to drive cars, he already had his pilot’s license.

Captain Sullenberger graduated near the top of his class of about 350 people and was the first-chair flautist in the marching band and involved in the Latin Club.

At the academy, he was selected along with about a dozen other freshmen to be involved in a cadet glider program, and by the end of the year was an instructor pilot.

“It was a tremendous asset to get exposed to that kind of flying early on,” said John Eisenhart, a fellow cadet in the program who now flies 767s for United Airlines. “And there’s no doubt in my mind that that came into play yesterday. When you’re in a glider you’ve got one shot at it. You’ve got to plan your energy, and of course your altitude is your energy, and that gives you one shot at the approach.”

Eric Vogel, who was in Captain Sullenberger’s squadron all four years at the academy and roomed with him during their freshman summer, said that even in the boot camp-like atmosphere that first summer, Captain Sullenberger was “unflappable.”

“You have all this pressure of a new lifestyle, and you have people yelling at you and things like that, and he would just take it and move on,” said Mr. Vogel, a pilot with Southwest Airlines.

Captain Sullenberger went on to earn two master’s degrees and become a safety expert who served on panels for the National Transportation Safety Board, among others. In one instance, he was among a group that studied emergency evacuation practices after a crash in Los Angeles, again a bit of experience likely to have come in handy on Thursday.

John Cox, a safety consultant and a former safety representative with Captain Sullenberger for the Air Line Pilots Association, said his friend personified what you wanted in a professional pilot.

“He’s naturally talented as an aviator, as he’s had very good training,” Mr. Cox said, “and it all came together on that landing in the Hudson.”


Copyright 2009 The New York Times Company

[seosoftseo]

From Times Online | January 16, 2009
Hero crash pilot Chesley Sullenberger offered key to city of New York
Whipping out a six-inch key in a wooden box, [Mayor Bloomberg] declared: “I have a key to the city right here and I am going to keep hold of it until I can present it to the incredibly brave pilot, co-pilot and the crew. "

He added: “This is a story of heroes - something out of a movie script. But if it was a movie people probably wouldn’t believe it. It is too good to be true.” *****

Reuters | Fri Jan 16, 2009
STATUE IN HIS HONOR?
Paterson said an anonymous person had offered to donate $10,000 toward building a statue to the pilot.

[marcusdexz]

Lou Reed took some pictures.

http://loureed.org/00/index.html

His website has been Flash'd to death and can be a bit unstable in my experience. Can't seem to direct link to the relevant page. Click on Lou Reed and then Pictures (Plane in the Hudson River - January 15th 2008 - currently displayed by default). The "sound" will stop after clicking on Lou Reed .

[Ijkavylo]

"Raw" Video taken from the Jersey side showing the splashdown of Flight 1549 (preceded by a short ad) including footage of ferries and other rescue craft advancing on the plane:

http://videos.kansascity.com/vmix_ho...dia?id=2861987

[AttableBewNaw]

Did the WNY Webcam 3 capture Flight 1549 as it made the Hudson splashdown?

The cam seems to be perfectly placed ...

Wired New York Webcam 3 is located in Weehawken, NJ. The view is looking east, towards New York Cruise Terminal and Midtown Manhattan.