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U.S Airways Jet Crashes Into New York City's Hudson River
Flight 1549 May Have Been the Victim of a Bird Strike
By RUSSELL GOLDMAN

January 15, 2009 —

A US Airways jet en route from New York to Charlotte crashed into the Hudson River off the west side of Manhattan with more than 150 people on board.

New York City firefighters and passenger ferries responded to the crashed plane, which floated near the historic aircraft carrier, The Intrepid.

The flight, US Airways 1549, was an A-320 manufactured by Airbus was carrying as many as 146 passengers and five crew members, according to the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey.

The plane's pilot allegedly reported a bird strike.

Witness Barbara Sambriski, a researcher at The Associated Press, said she thought, "Why is it so low?" And then, she said, "splash, it hit the water."

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

Copyright © 2009 ABC News Internet Ventures

US Airways Flight 1549 in Hudson River
2:55 PM Thu, Jan 15, 2009
Eric Torbenson

News reports showing an Airbus A320 that flew out of New York's LaGuardia sinking in Hudson River. Good news, if there is such a thing: Airframe appears very intact and was floating on the water for a good amount of time. Lots of ferries and helicopters there - pictures of people on the wings.

TV reports say 146 pax and 5 crew. Flight was en route to Charlotte and pilot reported hitting a "flock of geese" sources are saying - if he suffered birdstrikes on both engines, very likely to have to ditch the plane.

We don't know a lot: how quickly rescue boats and helicopters arrived and whether or not people on board were able to get out. From the looks of the TV pictures, they got a lot of boats and helicopters there.

Here's more gathered from wire services:

Joyce Cordero, a 60 Minutes producer who saw the airplane go down in the river, said she saw flotation devices open up as she watched with binoculars.

"We saw a few dozen people on the actual aircraft wing," she said on WABC-TV in New York, monitored over the Internet. "They made it out. Within a few minutes, we saw some rescue boats head over and help folks. In the next 15 minutes, it became a movie-like scene."

- No indications of terrorism activity.

One interesting note: The Hudson is on the other side of Manhattan from where this plane took off. That might suggest that they had to struggle with this aircraft OVER Manhattan, which would have been a potentially disastrous outcome.

Maybe the greatest job of flying a damaged aircraft since Souix City Iowa crash, where the plane had no hydraulic control? The pictures suggest the entire airframe is intact, which would give a really good chance of people getting off that plane OK.

Gov't officials now telling MSNBC that both engines got hit with birdstrikes.

How clean is the Hudson? I'm just curious. About seven or eight years ago, some friends of mine capsized in the Harbor here in Baltimore and they all had to get tetanus shots due to the state of the water.

Any realistic chance this aircraft can be refurbed and returned to service, or does immersion in cold salt water violate the warranty?

Looks like they already have cables on it to anchor it (the currents were moving it around just after the ditch) and are towing it towards shore.

It had just taken off and presumably it had full (or reasonably full) fuel. The Other Half was speculating that that load of jet fuel might have helped keep the airplane afloat as jet fuel is less dense than water. Don't know, just food for thought. The fact the airplane stayed intact also helped.

Passengers stood on the wings of a US Airways plane after it crash landed in the Hudson River on Thursday

January 16, 2009
Jet Ditches in Hudson; All Are Said Safe
By LIZ ROBBINS

A US Airways jetliner with 148 passengers and 5 crew members plunged into the icy Hudson River on Thursday afternoon five minutes after taking off from LaGuardia Airport, and a spokeswoman for the Federal Aviation Administration said everyone on board escaped safely.

Moments after the plane, a twin jet Airbus A320 bound for Charlotte, N.C., landed on the river near the mouth of the Lincoln Tunnel, at least a half-dozen small craft rushed to aircraft to rescue the freezing passengers and crew.

According to the Fire Department of New York, initial reports from the aviation agency said they thought that a flock of birds had hit the engine and caused the crash.

“It made this huge, gigantic splash, and I actually thought it was a boat crash at first,” said Fulmer Duckworth, 41, an employee at the Bank of America who watched the incident unfold from the 29th floor of his building at West 42nd Street and Sixth Avenue. “It didn’t occur to me that it was a plane in the water.”

Mr. Duckworth said he saw the plane spin counterclockwise in the water, and then begin drifting down the river with the current. The plane had taken off at 3:26 p.m., and the tide was on its way out, pulling the downed craft south down the frigid Hudson.

He said that a co-worker watched with binoculars as the people on board made their way onto both of the plane’s wings.

“The plane was totally intact,” Mr. Duckworth said. “Everybody thought it was a sea plane. I kept trying to tell them no.”

“Actually it looked like everybody was really calm, like on the subway platform when it’s really, really crowded, and everyone’s standing shoulder to shoulder,” he said. “Everyone was standing right up against each other on the wings.”

Witnesses said the plane, described by the manufacturer as a medium-range jetliner, floated for two or three minutes before it started to sink as it drfited (spelling!) downstream, it’s (sic--come on, NYT, "it's"???) nose poking up.

“It didn’t break up at all,” Mr. Duckworth said. “Everything you could see looked perfectly intact, like you could take it out of the water and fly it.

Another witness, Matt Mireles, who sent an e-mail message The New York Times, said that from the window of his Upper West Side apartment he saw white smoke trailing from the left engine shortly before it glided onto the icy gray water.

Laura J. Brown, a spokeswoman for the F.A.A., said the plane took off from Runway 4, made a left turn after takeoff, which is standard procedure, and moments later crashed into the Hudson.

Port Imperial Ferry, which operates between Manhattan and Weehawken, shut down service during the rescue operation.

The temperature outside was only 20 degrees, with a wind chill of 10 degrees; the Hudson River temperatures are in the mid-30s at this time of year.

The Airbus has sold nearly 3,600 airplanes in the A320 series since it was introduced in 1988. There have been 19 major accidents and 631 fatalities. There have also been 33 non-fatal accidents involving engine failures, nose gear problems and minor collisions.

Matthew L. Wald, Tina Kelly and Al Baker contributed reporting from New York, and Micheline Maynard from Detroit.

Seems like incoming water would displace air more rapidly than it would displace fuel (assuming a puncture in a tank).

I'm sure an engineer will correct me, here.

And this is why they put life vests on passenger aircraft. Yeah, most water landings end up with the aircraft smearing itself across the waves like an egg landing on concrete, dooming most or all of the passengers and crew to a watery grave, and leaving sad-looking floating bits and pieces of assorted clothing, but once in a while the plane lands intact or mostly intact and those vests can be life savers.

Also, hats off to the pilot for his role in making this flight one of the lucky ones.

DO they have life vests on passenger aircraft? I thought they just had seat-cushions designed to float.