Posted on 01/22/2009 9:48:19 AM PST by pabianice
The US Airways Hudson River Conspiracy
US Airways Flight 1549
As if it wasn’t enough to expect us to believe that the Twin Towers could collapse from plane impacts and fire alone, now “THEY” want us to believe that an aircraft could make a perfect landing in a river and everyone could just stroll right out like nothing’s wrong.
When I first heard that there were actually conspiracy theories and that this plane crash never actually happened, I thought it was a joke. Someone did write a great lampoon theory on Skeptalk — which admittedly took me a minute to realize it was a joke — but check out what one forum poster has actually claimed.
On January 15, 2009, US Airways Flight 1549 lost both engines after takeoff to bird strikes and ditched into the Hudson River. In one of the best pieces of news in a long time, all survived, with only one injury, albeit serious. The NTSB’s preliminary accident report is here.
Blogger Martin at The Lay Scientist made some great comments on this thread by “TruthSleuth” at AirlinePilotForums.com where actual pilots were discussing the actual event. TruthSleuth said:
I’m not a conspiracy theorist…
… But I’m also not into coincidence theories, either.
I’m VERY troubled by yesterday’s ditching of Flight 1549. It doesn’t make sense to me.
Consider these points:
- Apparently, a flock of birds knocked out two engines but didn’t leave an impact on the nose (as you know much more flimsy than engines).
- This picture is heavily Photoshopped… when you zoom in, you see all sorts of cut and paste artwork… even the USAir logo is pasted onto the plane. Why?
Also in this picture are dozens and dozens of “survivors”… it’s hard to count because the picture is so fuzzy and distant (a common theme… distant and fuzzy pics). How can more than 20 people stand on a wing and not collapse it?
- Where are the closeup pictures… if you watch any of the coverage yesterday, all of the camera angles were distant shots… even with the media within hundreds of yards of the scene. Why?
- As of this moment, I’ve yet to see a single video of the ditching… not one, And I’ve searched everywhere (including YouTube) — how can this be? Everyone seems to have a cell phone these days… especially in New York. What about CCTV cameras from the Port Authority… someone has to have a video of this, yet we see nothing. Why?
- One pilot (who if I remember posted here in this thread) lived near the crash scene admits he didn’t see the plane ditch… didn’t hear the plane ditch, but then saw the plane floating. Odd don’t you think?
- The only witnesses of the actual ditching were members of the media (who as you know cover all sorts of things up)… example:
“I just thought, ‘Why is it so low?’ And, splash, it hit the water,” said witness Barbara Sambriski, a researcher at The Associated Press.
- The media is reporting, “It appears to be the first time that a large commercial jet liner ever has made a successful controlled landing into a body of water.” Another coincidence. A “Miracle” is the media mantra about this. Can this plane really survive a ditching without nearly a scratch… really?
I could go on and on with minor stuff, but I hope you get my drift.
Don’t think a bird can hurt an airliner’s engine? Here’s a GNARLY YouTube video of a 757 sucking up a bird (you can actually see the bird go in), and then the engine flames out. Then you can hear the radio conversation as the pilot calls a MayDay and they arrange for his emergency landing. Luckily for this guy, he still had one engine to get around on.
Don’t think an airplane wing can hold the weight of 75 people standing on it? Just check out this video of a wing load test on a Boeing 777. Not the same type of plane as Flight 1549, but it gives you some idea of the standards these type of craft are built to. The wing actually bends 24 feet before shattering.
Note that each wing of an A320 on the ground must support the weight of about 19,000 kg of fuel, or 42,000 pounds, or the weight of 278 people who weigh 150 pounds each. And it’s certainly not engineered to break at that point. No, TruthSleuth, the weight of 75 people is not a problem for an A320’s wing to support, even if it was not floating and supported by the buoyancy of the fuel in the tank.
It’s fair that the videos of the plane crashing into the water hadn’t yet been found and released at the time TruthSleuth wrote his post. TruthSleuth seems to suspect that there’s a more probable way that that 1549 could have gotten into the river without being seen. Like, being trucked along the roads, reassembled at the water’s edge, craned into the water, and towed into position, without anyone noticing.
But we could go on and on addressing each of TruthSleuth’s concerns, and that’s been done both in Martin’s blog and on the pilots’ forum. He asks fair questions, that any reasonable person might ask. Joe Blow on the street doesn’t happen to know engineering details of the A320. But TruthSleuth is clearly not just a reasonable person asking reasonable questions.
He calls himself “TruthSleuth”. He begins with the (to him) obvious presumption that there is a hidden truth here. To him, CONSPIRACY is the default hypothesis. Note that the first words out of his mouth are to be defensive about this. Delusional claims of Photoshopping. Come on, supposedly someone is spending millions of dollars to accomplish this fake ditching, and they forget to paint the name of the airline on the side of the plane? And then they set about to CG every single frame of news footage? And then, what, pay off all the salvage workers and NTSB investigators who have the wreckage in front of them, to have them pretend to see “US AIRWAYS” on the side of the plane? This is not a reasonable question. Seeing something incredible in a photograph that’s clearly not there (whether it’s a Bigfoot or evidence of Photoshopping) is a classical delusion. Repeated use of the word “coincidence”. Conspiracy theorists see coincidences everywhere, too incredible to believe. But I can’t think of a single coincidence associated with this event. What is he seeing? Anyway, it’s a sad thing. But, to be fair, everyone is delusional to some degree. Whether you think everyone in the room is looking at you because you have a hair out of place, or whether you think George Bush towed Flight 1549 out into the Hudson River, it’s a delusion. The closer we can all get to the “low” end of that spectrum, the better. I don’t know if rationally answering TruthSleuth’s questions will push him in that direction, because I don’t think his questions stem from an honest desire to learn, but rather from a desire to justify his delusion. But rationally answering them is always the best response.
15 Comments » A similar incident is in Sweden known as Gottrörakraschen. December 21 1993 Scandinavian Airlines Flight 751 lost both engines and went down in a field. Amazingly everyone on board survived.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scandinavian_Airlines_Flight_751
PS An odd detail regarding that crash is that the airline logos were painted over shortly after the crash, which is why you don’t see any in the picture used in the wikipedia article. DS
Comment by Carl von Blixen — January 22, 2009 @ 6:24 am
Unbelievable. Some people don’t have enough to do, I guess. According to the aircraft specs. it’s fully loaded take-off weight is 77 tons. The wings support the lion’s share of that weight. And there is video here: http://tinyurl.com/dkx4xj
Of all the things to see conspiracy in, why a plane crash with a happy ending?
Love the blog, btw. :-)
Comment by Rick Tetrault — January 22, 2009 @ 7:00 am
Painting over aircraft logos after a crash seems to be a common thing. I recall a crash in China a year or two back where that was almost the first priority after rescue/fire operations. I heard it was to minimize bad PR for the airline by keeping their logo out of subsequent pictures. That way, people wouldn’t subconsciously associate that logo with “crash”.
Comment by Ranson — January 22, 2009 @ 7:58 am
Wouldn’t the oblivious question to ask Truthsleuth simply be - why?
Comment by Wrysmile — January 22, 2009 @ 8:21 am
Though I’m not sure exactly which pictures he’s referring to, conspiracy theorists always seem to mistake basic jpeg compression artifacts for evidence of photoshopping. No, it’s evidence of a small file.
Comment by cuggy — January 22, 2009 @ 9:50 am
But really, is the bogus logic behind these conspiracy theories all that much more delusional than Sean Hannity on FOX news going off on how Senators who support legislation for the protection of geese are partly to blame and should have been held responsible if anyone had been killed in the crash, while his guest nod in approval? All the while implying we would all be better off if we just got rid of the geese. No one really cares about this conspiracy fool, while Hannity has an audience of…how many dittoheads? Just saying
Comment by Eric L — January 22, 2009 @ 10:12 am
I’m tired of everyone calling this a “miracle.” Does there really have to be divine intervention here? Isn’t it enough to attribute everyone’s safety to Captain Sullenberger’s expert piloting skills? The media really isn’t helping this point.
Comment by Brandon — January 22, 2009 @ 10:36 am
@ Brandon
I’ve noted that elsewhere. Wouldn’t a kind, benevolent, interventionist deity have simply not crashed the plane?
Comment by Ranson — January 22, 2009 @ 10:39 am
Excellent debunking, Brian. My first instinct in response to Sleuth’s comment of 75 people breaking an aircraft wing was to consider the entire weight of the fuel.
Furthermore, the pilot was the right person for this job. His expert training, experience and skills prevailed in making the water landing successful.
Comment by Mike B — January 22, 2009 @ 11:06 am
Slow conspiracy month. It’ll get better with the new administration, don’t you worry your little heads.
Comment by Kapten Kalabajooie — January 22, 2009 @ 11:13 am
There were pleanty of conspiracies surrounding Obama leading up to the inaguration. He’s muslim, the devil, not a US citezen, etc… none worth debunking here. I’m not a regular reader, though, so maybe they did debunk some here.
Comment by Jackal — January 22, 2009 @ 11:31 am
?
This isn’t a joke? Are you sure? Someone is actually claiming a conspiracy involving this flight?
We really need more research into altering genetics, this is pathetic beyond all reason.
I’m dumbfounded with the unmitigated idiocy.
Comment by Mastriani — January 22, 2009 @ 11:47 am
When a plane is in the air, the wings are supporting the entire weight of the plane, fuel and passengers. What else does he think is holding the plane up? If the wing could not support the weight of passengers standing on it, then it could not support their weight when the wing is supplying lift to keep them in the air.
Comment by ddr — January 22, 2009 @ 12:21 pm
@cuggy
The picture he posted at the Pilots forum is one taken by Janis Krums (a Twitterer) who was on one of the ferries heading to the plane. He took it with his cell phone and there was some water splashing on the lens as well. http://twitpic.com/135xa
Comment by Karina Wright — January 22, 2009 @ 12:22 pm
There’s raw video all over you tube, mostly PA CCTV???
Comment by Mastriani — January 22, 2009 @ 12:25 pm
Maybe the immaculation on Tuesday is a conspiracy. Maybe the O is not really president.
That’s something I can hope for.
I wonder what ‘truthslueths’ screen name is at Liberty Post....(chuckle)
Proof that retards still do exists.
I’ll wait for metallurgist Rosie O’Donnell to weigh in before I pass judgement.
They were Manchurian geese. They were made in a DARPA funded lab. They are geese that have bionic componenets implanted into them so they can be steered into jet engine intakes.
Pretty clever weapon these CIA folks have developed...
LOL. A Wing can support a 250,000 lb plane at several G's, but it can't hold 20 people floating full of fuel on the water?
I hope your wings are strong enough!
Lost interest in this fruit right there. He didn't look very hard at all:
Some even include idiotic comments from losers confusing Time Warner Center with WTC Twin Towers.
So, would TruthSleuth rather they had all died?
I'm with Rosie: "Steel doesn't melt" and metal objects can't float. (/sarc)
What an ass.
Where is the tinfoil alert?
I live near the airport and am pretty sure I saw some guided missiles with frozen turkey MIRV warheads being launched right after the plane took off.
I’m still trying to figure out what this “conspiracy” is trying to cover up and hide? A missing number of Canada geese? Oh, I get it...US AIR officials were poaching. They were worried someone would notice the reduction in geese. So fake a plane running into them and then there’s the explanation for the missing geese. Very clever....
Maybe these folks posting were playing the “Obama Inauguration Drinking Game”. :-)
>>>How can more than 20 people stand on a wing and not collapse it?
>>>LOL. A Wing can support a 250,000 lb plane at several G’s, but it can’t hold 20 people floating full of fuel on the water?
Sure but this overloooks the whole “flying” conspiracy. How can anything that heavy even get off the ground, let alone travel at 30,000 feet. /s
Thank God for man-made global warming to have those waters high enough for the jet to land safely!
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.