US Airways Jet crashes in Hudson River in NYC

Fox ^ | Jan 15, 2009

[Red Steel]

Breaking now of Fox News.

[jwparkerjr]

The news channels (I know, so what) are reporting the water temp as 42 degrees. I would have thought it much colder than that. Is the water in the Hudson salt water, as salty as sea water. If the river flows from inland the Atlantic then it probably has some fresh water mixed in. I have no idea. I've only been up there one time and although we took the trip around Manhattan it never occurred to me to taste the water. For my money, as a native Central Floridian, anything below 80 degrees is too cold for me. I can't even imagine having to go into 40 something degree water. All in all this seems to have been nothing short of a miracle in every sense of the word.

[JOE6PAK]

BLOOMBERG IN CHARGE NOW!

[jwparkerjr]

I’m afraid you would have to kill me to get me into water that cold! Of course I might feel differently if suddenly faced with going into the water or down with the aircraft. My reasoning there would be I’m going into the water one way or the other. I’d rather be in the water and out of the plane!

[Spktyr]

Pilot is said to have been last man off (good man, that) and walked the plane twice to make sure everyone was out before leaving.

[greysells2]

there lots of a sub species of the Canada Goose called non migritary canadian geese. These geese have never learned or forgotten how to migrate. Big diservice to feed them as they just multiply. Mess up parks, get aggressive with people and dogs and get gobbled up by airplane engines. These geese need to be culled humanely.

[freedumb2003]

And it looks like the record is still in tact. Kudos to the pilot and copilot. I don’t ever recall a water ditching, or one land for that matter, turning out so well. Also, I’m not a big fan of consortium built aircraft, but it looks like Airbus built a plane that could withstand a water ditching.

All they had to do was copy the 737 -- which is what they did.

But enough snark -- GREAT NEWS that everyone survived :)

[AGreatPer]

Several years ago we hit a flock of geese out of Boston. Fortunately it was an L-1011 with three engines. With one engine gone we had no problem turning around that smokestack on the left and returned to land.

It does feel like you hit a brick wall in the sky when you hit a bird(s).

[AFPhys]

To tell you the truth, the way this pilot sees it, this is exactly what the pilot is expected to be able to do. In fact, it is quite a mundane emergency... apparently no complications like losing flight controls or avionics. I guarantee this pilot, and every other pilot, sees a dozen worse scenarios every year in his training. Bird strikes were a staple food for emergencies, and so were water landings.

Being a pilot is known as “hours, days and months of sheer boredom interspersed with a few seconds of stark, raving terror.” I wouldn’t be surprised if, to the pilot, the only time he was really crossing his fingers in this whole incident was when the water was coming up toward him, and he was saying, “Well, this is the one thing I haven’t really done before... I hope to God this works the way I’ve been trained!”...

Hero... I suppose so, but every time a pilot takes off with a passenger plane he is really prepared for many emergencies just like this one, and many much worse.

[AFPhys]

Chicken wire would cause unquestionably make the damage likelihood worse.

[JOE6PAK]

Are they towing the plane to NJ?

[cajungirl]

why a jerk? He was describing what happened. I don’t understand the urge to label people jerks especially when they just escaped death in a miraculous way.

[Spktyr]

Plane is now moored at the shoreline near Stuyvesant High in NYC.

[CholeraJoe]

There was a 4-ship crash of the Thunderbirds on January 18, 1982 that killed a classmate of mine. Several of the pilots attempted to activate their ACESII but impacted the ground before the seat could clear them of the aircraft.

The ACESII has saved lots of lives, but nothing’s 100% effective.

[AGreatPer]

"Friggen birds. I’m stuck at LaGuardia now."

You should be ok on your flight. The birds are gone now.

[AFPhys]

You can not make a “soft landing” on water... the wheels don’t roll so well there, so on most planes you take a water landing gear up. So here you are on a very fast surfboard with outriggers and dragging an anchor ... and those are gonna dig in pretty darn fast and hard, which means you come to a stop very fast... unless you’re really lucky that day and the nose manages to dig in and flip the plane.

Water is not soft when you’re going over a hundred miles an hour.

Darned tootin’ the passengers were warned to BRACE before landing! And this time, the stews probably had time to go down the aisles and correct the positioning of more than a few of them.

[zot]

Thanks for the Pilot-earning-his-pay ping...

Yes, these pilots earned their pay and then some! They had about two minutes to do everything right, and they picked the only place in that area where they could make a smooth landing.

To make it even better, they landed right in front of a swarm of NYC ferry boats whose instant response was superb.

[Perdogg]

Thnak you!

[malkee]

Yeah... then the stupid dog forgets about the little bird, and starts chasing the loud Big Bird down the runway. Whoops... dog ingestion on number two! Gives new meaning to screwing the pooch

Yes, but having a dog on the runway still might be better than nothing.

[headsonpikes]

Sonovagun!

Thank you for that - Wow!

[gondramB]

>>Yeah... then the stupid dog forgets about the little bird, and starts chasing the loud Big Bird down the runway. Whoops... dog ingestion on number two! Gives new meaning to screwing the pooch

---

Yes, but having a dog on the runway still might be better than nothing. <<

I was thinking - maybe a screen over the intake?