On the afternoon of Jan 15th 2009, a US Airways Airbus A320 bound for Charlotte NC as flight US 1549 ditched into the Hudson River three minutes after departing New York's La Guardia airport. Weather was cold and mostly clear.
The aircraft, with 150 passengers and 5 crew members on board, departed La Guardia out of RWY4 and experienced a dual engine failure shortly after take off. Birds who were sucked into the CFM engines of the aircraft are the cause of the incident, the captain radioed ATC and mentioned they had trouble with both engines, ATC vectored the aircraft towards the south attempting to have it return to La Guardia. The captain thought of diverting the aircraft to Teterboro NJ located just North of Newark but after clearing the Georges Washington Bridge it was clear to the crew that they would never make it to any airport in the vicinity so they decided to ditch the aircraft into the Hudson River and started the emergency prodecures. The aircraft ditched very smoothly at 331PM EST near the 42nd Street in Manhattan NY. Thanks to the very professinal attitude of the experienced captain and the quick response from the ferry boat crews, all 150 passengers were rescued and some were taken to nearby hospitals.
Captain Sullenberger, age 57, has been flying for US Airways for almost 30 years and he was previously a combat pilot in the military, he was also a glider instructor. All passengers owe their life to him since he has done a terrific job in handling this emergency. He has saved the lives of all passengers and crew by making the snap decision to ditch the aircraft on the Hudson River so that all passengers and crew could be rescued quickly. He put the aircraft down in the water very smoothly, as smootly as any uneventluf landing on concrete soil. The crew checked twice that every passenger escaped safely.
An airliner, although built with composite and aluminium heavier than water, can float on water because the fuel it carries is lighter than water, but the Airbus A320 aircraft and later Airbuls models are designed with a special device called "ditching switch" which closes all valves on the fuselage so that the aircraft can float longer than it would normally without this device. A few cases of ditching in the sea have been reported in the history of aviation but this one in partucular is the one that saved most lives thanks to the professionalism of the crew and the ditching device installed on the Airbus. Ths particular aircraft, registered N106US, was one of the many Airbus aircraft in US Airways fleet. It was built and delivered in 1999 to America West which merged with US Airways in 2005. The above pictures, taken at 200PM EST on Jan 17th in Lower West Side of Manhattan, show the top of the tail of the airliner.
