US Airways Down

[CG_1976]

Us Airways flight 1549 has gone down in New York's Hudson River.
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/28678669/

[Rami]

Watching it on CNN. It looks like the pilot did a phenomenal job landing the plane, no one appears to be dead or badly hurt. It sounds like a bird strike?

[pointy31]

Not a normal landing, but I wouldn't call it a "crash"....maybe a "splash"...

In any event, the crew did a fantastic job of landing it and getting the pax out......:ernae:

[cheezyflier]

wow! that's really something! i hope everyone turns out ok.
who knows, maybe this could lengthen goose season in the mid atlantic states:kilroy:

[planejunky]

They reckon everyone's ok thank goodness. Top marks to the crew, it could've been a really bad situation.

[TARPSBird]

Good slide show of pics at Yahoo:
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/plane_in_river

[Railrunner130]

That's so incredible! I'd bet some of the passengers never got wet! Once I saw the pic of an intact fuselage, I knew it would have a good outcome for a change.

[WuhWuzDat]

The pilot of this aircraft gets my nomination for "Pilot Of The Year, 2009" !!

Update: per ABC news, the pilot was Chelsey B. Sullenberger III, a former F-4 Phantom pilot, who had been flying for USAir for 29 years.
:amen::icon29::applause::woot:

Jeff

[GT182]

Jeff, make that "pilots".

Both pilots are heros on this one. Neither could have done it alone... especially in an emergency like this. I'm surprised that that A-320 stayed afloat as long as it did.... especially to get 150 people off with the doors and emergency exits open. A hunk of metal that big and loaded with fuel doesn't float well.

Heard that they "believe" birds were sucked into both engines. I figure they went thru a flock of geese. If it had only been one engine that went out, they might have had a good chance of making it back to LGA to land. Now they've got to fish it out of the Hudson River asap, or they'll have a mess with the fuel getting into the river. The pilots did the best thing tho and set her down in the river. If it had been any other place around there, it would have been a real disaster.

Also the news here said the river temp was 40*F. Even tho they got wet they would be dam cold but not have to worry as much as if the water temp was 32 or below. The air temp would be a problem tho. Only real injury I heard of was one of the pilots had a minor cut.

This was one lucky flight. It could have been like the crash in Washington DC back in 87 at Christmas, or just before. I'm guessing as close as I can on that date. I was in northern Virginia when that crash happened.

[Crusader]

The pilot of this aircraft gets my nomination for "Pilot Of The Year, 2009" !!

Update: per ABC news, the pilot was Chelsey B. Sullenberger III, a former F-4 Phantom pilot, who had been flying for USAir for 29 years.
:amen::icon29::applause::woot:

Jeff

I could'nt agree with you more Jeff . What an amazing job of piloting skill .:applause:

Rich

[srgalahad]

Ditchings tend to be nasty, but the training is a lot better these days. Even so, to not rip the wings off when the engines hit.. and the ensuing break-up --Full marks to the crew! The often-flawed eyewitness reports make it sound like the touchdown was close to a full stall so the forward impact would be less - another bonus.

GT, don't forget that fuel is lighter than water, so that helped a bit (and may not have been "full") as would any trapped air in the wings. From the video the forward hatches and overwing exits stayed above water for quite a while. Also I think the forward bag hold is pressurized so it would seal well.

Rob

[GT182]

GT, don't forget that fuel is lighter than water, so that helped a bit (and may not have been "full") as would any trapped air in the wings. From the video the forward hatches and overwing exits stayed above water for quite a while. Also I think the forward bag hold is pressurized so it would seal well.

Rob

True on the fuel... I didn't take that into account, as with the pressurized baggage compartment. That's why the nose was riding high. Still a lot of weight to float that wasn't meant to. I imagine they didn't use a lot of fuel seeing they'd just took off. But they could have been "light" seeing they were stopping at Charlotte, NC, and put on more fuel there before heading west to Washington(state).

I was afraid one of the ferries was goning to hit a wing and push it under or break one off. All those boats around it did a great job. And their captains should be commended too. It sounds like their response was very fast.

[viking3]

Also I think the forward bag hold is pressurized so it would seal well.

Rob

Both fwd and aft cargo compartments plus the electronics bays are in the pressurized portion of the airframe. The A-320 also has a "Ditching" switch on the overhead panel which when pressed closes all the air conditioning pack doors and the pressurization outflow valve to seal the lower fuselage(ditching config) as best as possible delaying water ingress.
Great job by all involved to save everyone.:applause:

Regards, Rob:ernae:

[luckydog]

I want to hear at what altitude he lost his engines......

[smoores]

They had enough time to get their bags out of the overhead compartment, although they may have shifted:faint:

[wombat666]

Bloody brilliant!
Both engines out thanks to double bird strikes and the crew get it down into water without any injury to the passengers. Some hypothermia courtesy of the NY weather but nothing of any significance.
Bravo.
:applause::applause::applause:

[Brian_Gladden]

http://www.aero-news.net/index.cfm?ContentBlockID=5aec1806-b6ca-4461-b627-7fb6d3af92c1&#d

A bio on the Captain. Definitely the guy I want behind the stick when the :censored: hits the fan


Brian

[stiz]

I want to hear at what altitude he lost his engines......

they where saying bout 3k ft on the news here this morning

[GT182]

Well, in my book, the 2nd Officer deserves some credit too. Without "both" of them it would have been much worse. These guys "usually" fly together and know what to do.... at least the ones I knew did. Yeah the Captain gives the orders but the 2nd Officer is doing it as he gives them out, if not before. At 3k from LGA to the Hudson it isn't very far, and you get wet real quick.

They're both heros in my book. :applause: http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v64/GT182/sigpic336_1.gif http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v64/GT182/sigpic336_1.gif

[WhoDat]

According to the VATAWARE flight following the max altitude reached was 3200 ft.

[GT182]

3200 feet isn't all that high. To say the least, they were very lucky to make it to the river. I believe an A-320 glides like a stubby winged brick.

[thefrog]

3200 feet isn't all that high. To say the least, they were very lucky to make it to the river. I believe an A-320 glides like a stubby winged brick.
Have you seen this BBC News report using a Sim to illustrate the flight and ditching: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/7834499.stm

[srgalahad]

3200 feet isn't all that high. To say the least, they were very lucky to make it to the river. I believe an A-320 glides like a stubby winged brick.

The "Gimli Glider" 767 without the benefit of a placarded best glide speed (whodathunk) maintained a glide ratio of 12:1 so even with better data/training if we assume the same for the Airbus (it's probably better) that's 3200x12=38000 ft or almost 6.5 nm. High performance sailplanes are about 26-34:1 and a brick is about 1:1 without the stubby wings. IIRC, a properly configured and flown B727 had a glide ratio of near 24:1

Some of the photos show flaps partially extended so it looks as though they had time to set up a good configuration.

Planes do glide a lot better than the average reporter knows or cares to understand so they just hype the "danger"

Rob

[GT182]

I can't get the video to play Frog. Tho if what I read below the video box is true, everyone is blown away as to how he pulled it off. I say God was looking over his shoulder yesterday.

Bloomberg said that Captain Sullenberger, copilot and attendants will get the highest award NYC can give(didn't catch the name of it, I tuned in just after he'd sais what it was), and the keys to the city for them all.

[GT182]

Rob, did anyone say how far it was from engines out to the landing spot in the river? They showed the course he took but no distance was given. Most pilots I know would give the "glides like a brick" senario, so I added the stubby winged deal to give it more distance. ;)

Some time today was given for the recovery of the plane from the river. A crane was standing by at the pier where the plane was tied up. I just got back home so I don't know if it's out and on land or not.

[Pepere]

I like what his wife said "Lorrie Sullenberger and her two daughters emerged from her Danville, Calif., home Friday and called her husband "a pilot's pilot who "loves the art of the airplane.""

Must be why we mess with this stuff "the art of the airplane":rapture:


David :kilroy:

[David_L6]

I can't get the video to play Frog.

I had the same problem. Hit "reload" or "refresh". That worked for me.

EDIT: Well.... It worked on the first video I watched. It isn't working on another one that I'm trying to watch. I think that ad.doubleclick.net is the culprit.

[Panther_99FS]

--> http://www.af.mil/news/story.asp?id=123131675 :)

[Tom Clayton]

I have to agree that the pilot and crew are true heroes! As for injuries, I heard that one flight attendant went into surgery for either one or both legs broken, and that none of the passengers was injured further than hypothermia.

[srgalahad]

Rob, did anyone say how far it was from engines out to the landing spot in the river? They showed the course he took but no distance was given.

Nothing definitive yet - that will probably be Monday before they read the FDR and process it thru the sim.. From watching many reruns I'm thinking the mess started probably just off the departure end of 04 over the water (180kts/1000 ft?), took a minute or two(180-210kts-still climbing) for the first failure to be identified and dealt with, #2 still producing some power (180-200kts- 3200ft) which led to the decision to go to New Jersey, start the turn then WHAMMO! there goes #2. (set up 150-160 kts) and pick a spot.

Playing with it in Google Earth I came up with a total distance of about 15-16 nm and guessing as above, about 7.5 -8.5 miles from the time it got vewwy, vewwy quiet. That's still consistent with a glide ratio of 12:1 or so.

Conjecture mode OFF. I think they'll have a good initial brief quite soon.

BTW.. notice that as yet there is no good info on the rest of the crew.. just the heroic captain. It may not even have been him who did most of the initial flying, but the politicos and media have seized on a name and the trumpets blare. Compare that to the BA crash at Heathrow where it took less than 24 hours to announce that the FO was the one who was PIC on the leg.

Rob

Ah well...

[warbird861]

I saw US Coast Guard video of the ditching, it took only 1 minute for the first boat to get to the plane.

Here's the plane's route
http://newsimg.bbc.co.uk/media/images/45382000/gif/_45382049_ny_sat_planecrash_466.gif
1 1526 local time (2026 GMT): Flight 1549 takes off from LaGuardia airport
2 1527 (2027 GMT): Pilot Chesley Sullenberger reports birds hitting engines
3 1528 (2028 GMT): Pilot told to land at Teterboro airfield
4 1531 (2031 GMT): Pilot ditches plane in Hudson River