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Re: FLASH! US Airlines Flight 1549 Down In Hudson River

Posted: 2009-01-16 02:16pm
by FSTargetDrone
Kanastrous wrote:Never seems to work. Whenever someone burbles at me about their 'miraculous' recovery, I always ask what about all the similarly afflicted people, for whom there was no 'miracle?' Does God just *like* you, better than them? and am invariably rewarded with a blank stare, a few seconds' silence, then the burble resumes.
I know, it's just supremely irritating.

Anyway, here's an antidote to that mentality:

From The Times Online:
January 16, 2009

Airmanship, not miracle, saved US Airways jet in New York

Charles Bremner

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After air crashes, everyone usually jumps to conclusions and gets the story wrong. This is unlikely to be the case with US Airways Flight 1549, the Airbus which ditched in the Hudson River just off Manhattan's west side. The facts seem straightforward and the credit goes to extraordinary old-fashioned airmanship.

The flying world is full of admiration for the pilots who put a big, all-electronic airliner, down so softly on water that it stayed in one piece. Bored passengers are used to briefings on the "unlikely event of water landings", but in reality, big planes more often break up and sink quickly, killing many of their occupants.

Along with his first officer, Captain Chesley Sullenberger achieved a text-book 'dead stick' landing only three minutes after hitting a flock of birds as their Airbus A320 was was climbing low over northern New York City. I can imagine the picture well because I used to pilot light aircraft along the same low path over the George Washington Bridge and down the Hudson beside Manhattan.

Praise is also going to the three cabin crew who organised the evacuation of the 155 passengers. And there is credit for the French-based European Airbus firm for building a tough airliner. Among other things, unlike Boeings, the Airbus has an emergency "Ditch button", which closes vents and makes the fuselage more watertight. Airbus pilots have always been sceptical about the button, on the overhead panel. Today, they are saying today "Oh, so that's what it's for."

Here is what is known about an episode that will go down in flying lore. We do not know if Sullenberger or his co-pilot was flying the leg when the the Airbus left La Guardia, a difficult airport on the water's edge inside the borough of Queens. They were at 3,200 feet in the climb when they reported hitting large birds. These stopped one engine and severely dropped the power or killed the other one. When that happens, there is no-where to go but down.

At that moment, the aeroplane driver is no longer a systems manager. He or she has to forget the electronics and call on the most old-fashioned aviator's skills. A Dutch airline captain called Denkraai decribed it on the PRUNE pilots' network this morning: "What a nightmare. We sit there in our cockpits for years and years and nothing goes wrong. Then all of a sudden you have seconds to decide. I salute you sir, and your crew."

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The US Airways plane had the good fortune to be under the command of an old-style stick-and-rudder pilot. Sullenberger, 58, is a former USAF fighter pilot and a man who lives for flying. He has 19,000 hours and among other things, he is also a glider instructor and he runs a company that advises on safety systems and crew procedures.

The pilots had two or three airports in potential gliding range, but from only 3,200 feet they could only glide a handful of miles, depending on the wind. Simply turning 90 degrees would cost them more than 1,000 feet. Captain Sullenberger decided that they would probably not be able to make Teterboro, the small airport on the New Jersey side of the Hudson (where I used to land). Everywhere is built-up and on the left were the dense high rise towers of Manhattan. The alternatives would have been trying to land on a highway or turn down the Hudson. Putting an airliner down at some 140 knots on busy roads would have been lethal so they chose the very long wet runway to their left.

The two pilots would have been flat out running through emergency procedures and configuring the plane for landing -- with flaps down to slow it, but wheels up (they only hinder in water). Just for the information, the plane can glide 2.5 nautical miles per 1,000 feet at an average descent rate of about 1,600 feet per minute. That meant that they had about two minutes once both engines were out.

When the "Fly-by-wire" A320 was first introduced in the 1980s, pilots dreaded the prospect of a powerless glide. Nothing physical connects them to the hydraulically-operated control surfaces on the wings and tail. The computers send their manual commands from a little side-stick and rudder pedals to the machinery. But the power apparently worked fine as they slowed the airliner on its glide. If both engines were completely dead, the juice would have come from the batteries and a Ram Air Turbine (a windmill that opens into the slipstream but is not much use at slow speeds). Perhaps they managed to start the Auxiliary Power Unit, the noisy internal turbine that normally provides power on the ground.

The computer's anti-stall system would have helped Captain Sullenberger slow the plane to the maximum. Flying by the seat of his pants, he would have flared it like a much smaller plane, pulling its nose up to let it settle in the edge of a stall at about 130 mph onto the water. Making things worse was a 10 knot tail-wind. At that speed water is like concrete. One of the motors and perhaps both, sheered off their pylons under the wings, as they are designed to do in a crash. That prevented the plane breaking. A passenger described the impact as no worse than a rear-end car collision.

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Very few airliners have remained intact after ditching. Two exceptions were a Japan Airlines DC-8 [above] which came down off San Francisco airport in November 1968. It was recovered and flew on for years. Another involved an Arabian registered Boeing 707 cargo jet in Africa in 2000. The most famous airliner ditching occurred in November 1996 when an Ethiopian Airlines Boeing was hijacked and came down off the Comoros islands [video below]. The plane, which had run out of fuel, caught a wing-tip and cartwheeled as it put down on a rough sea. Out of 175 on board, 50 survived.
Interesting that the aircraft pictured above was refurbished and continued to fly! I guess such water landings don't always result in a write-off after all. More interesting is that Boeings don't have the "ditch" button, according to this writer.

Re: FLASH! US Airlines Flight 1549 Down In Hudson River

Posted: 2009-01-16 02:49pm
by AMT
While annoyed that I couldn't fly back home for Charlotte for a day because of this (I was apparently supposed to be on the same plane for my flight back home at 6-ish pm after our regional office training) I am supremely gladdened to see that the worst complaint to be had due to this crash is the fact my flight was delayed.
Capt. Sullenberger and your first officer, my hats off to you.

Something tells me the pair of them will be getting a lot of christmas cards and gifts for the rest of their lives.

Re: FLASH! US Airlines Flight 1549 Down In Hudson River

Posted: 2009-01-16 04:08pm
by Lonestar
Broomstick wrote:Graphic of the flight path:

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Reports are that the pilot considered Teterboro, and the graphic might make it appear he could have made it, but you have to recall that the area is full of very tall buildings and the aircraft was unable to climb. The Hudson river offered a VERY long "runway" with no buildings. The pilot clearly took the choice that presented the fewest potential causalities in the event he couldn't make a successful landing, and managed to resolve the problems without any loss of life.
The arrangement of the runways at Teterboro seem to preclude a landing there, and even if they didn't he still made the right decision in being "safe"(for the citizens below) and landing in the Hudson.

Re: FLASH! US Airlines Flight 1549 Down In Hudson River

Posted: 2009-01-16 04:37pm
by Imperial Overlord
On a lighter note, I think we have some BAMF award winners here.

Re: FLASH! US Airlines Flight 1549 Down In Hudson River

Posted: 2009-01-16 05:07pm
by Broomstick
Someone supposedly got a picture of it coming in over the Hudson:

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Wonder if anyone got the touchdown?

Re: FLASH! US Airlines Flight 1549 Down In Hudson River

Posted: 2009-01-16 07:13pm
by Kanastrous
There's video of the plane flying toward the river, but so far no footage of the actual landing.

I'm mildly surprised that PETA hasn't yet gotten people out there to bemoan the loss of the ingested birds, and insist that we give up commercial aviation, in order to protect them.

Re: FLASH! US Airlines Flight 1549 Down In Hudson River

Posted: 2009-01-16 07:15pm
by Enigma
Kanastrous wrote:There's video of the plane flying toward the river, but so far no footage of the actual landing.

I'm mildly surprised that PETA hasn't yet gotten people out there to bemoan the loss of the ingested birds, and insist that we give up commercial aviation, in order to protect them.
"Will someone think of the air kittens!" :)

Re: FLASH! US Airlines Flight 1549 Down In Hudson River

Posted: 2009-01-16 07:41pm
by TempestSong
Kanastrous wrote:I'm mildly surprised that PETA hasn't yet gotten people out there to bemoan the loss of the ingested birds, and insist that we give up commercial aviation, in order to protect them.
The media would shit all over them. Literally. Even O'Reilly was like "if a lawyer tries to make a case out of this, we'll bring them to attention here!"

Re: FLASH! US Airlines Flight 1549 Down In Hudson River

Posted: 2009-01-16 08:00pm
by Skylon
Broomstick wrote:
Reports are that the pilot considered Teterboro, and the graphic might make it appear he could have made it, but you have to recall that the area is full of very tall buildings and the aircraft was unable to climb. The Hudson river offered a VERY long "runway" with no buildings. The pilot clearly took the choice that presented the fewest potential causalities in the event he couldn't make a successful landing, and managed to resolve the problems without any loss of life.
Nor does the graphic indicate anything about factors like wind direction.

Re: FLASH! US Airlines Flight 1549 Down In Hudson River

Posted: 2009-01-16 10:41pm
by CaptainChewbacca
I'd really like to see a picture of that bad boy skimming over the George Washington Bridge. THAT makes for a memorable commute.

Re: FLASH! US Airlines Flight 1549 Down In Hudson River

Posted: 2009-01-17 07:01pm
by Mayabird
A video of the landing. Doesn't say specifically but it was probably taken by a security camera.

Re: FLASH! US Airlines Flight 1549 Down In Hudson River

Posted: 2009-01-17 10:52pm
by Kanastrous
They hit the water right by the pier from which my wife and I took one of those around-Manhattan water tours, last visit to NYC. The boat by the wreck (people flinging life jackets) looks just like the boat we rode, maybe is the same one...

Re: FLASH! US Airlines Flight 1549 Down In Hudson River

Posted: 2009-01-17 11:52pm
by LadyTevar

Re: FLASH! US Airlines Flight 1549 Down In Hudson River

Posted: 2009-01-18 06:08am
by Julhelm
Edi wrote:Truly impressive work from the pilot. That man is a hero.

The most memorable plane crash that I remember is the passenger jet that went down in Sweden sometime in the late 1980s. Crashed in the middle of the forest, fuselage broke into three parts and all told less than ten people out of more than 100 died. It was remarkable precisely because usually everyone dies in crashes like that and almost everyone got out of that one alive. The aerial pictures of the crash site they showed on the news here were pretty amazing. Sadly, I don't have time to Google the event from work.
If you're thinking of the Gottröra crash in '91, everybody on the plane survived.

Re: FLASH! US Airlines Flight 1549 Down In Hudson River

Posted: 2009-01-18 10:30am
by Edi
Julhelm wrote:
Edi wrote:Truly impressive work from the pilot. That man is a hero.

The most memorable plane crash that I remember is the passenger jet that went down in Sweden sometime in the late 1980s. Crashed in the middle of the forest, fuselage broke into three parts and all told less than ten people out of more than 100 died. It was remarkable precisely because usually everyone dies in crashes like that and almost everyone got out of that one alive. The aerial pictures of the crash site they showed on the news here were pretty amazing. Sadly, I don't have time to Google the event from work.
If you're thinking of the Gottröra crash in '91, everybody on the plane survived.
That's the one. Thanks, now I found something on it: Link to wikipedia article. I got the time period wrong, but I still remember the aerial view. I had a recollection that it was supposed to have been without fatalities, but wasn't sure, that's why the comment on less than ten dead. 0<10, so it's still right. ;)