Posted on 01/16/2009 12:21:31 AM PST by malkee
Just when we really needed a miracle, we got one.
"Miracle on the Hudson," Gov. Paterson rightly called it.
Paterson was standing with the mayor and the police commissioner and the fire commissioner and other faces that have become too familiar to us in moments of tragedy.
They must have all been stricken with the same dread when word came that a passenger plane had gone down in the icy Hudson River on a day of killing cold.
The dread was shared by all the cops and firefighters and paramedics who raced to the scene, emergency lights garish in the frigid air.
And the rest of us could only pray and say, please, not another horror.
Oh no, we said.
Not in that icy, icy water on this cold, cold day.
Only after we learned that all aboard had escaped serious injury did we feel how much we needed this bit of luck when so much seems to be going wrong.
Smiles flashed beneath helmet brims and uniform cap visors.
The most beautiful sight in the city was of the passengers: shaken and chilled, but blessedly alive and unhurt.
And we had new heroes to join all those of the FDNY and the NYPD and EMS who had converged at the river's edge fearing the worst.
We had the crews of the ferry boats that churned right up to the floating plane, helping the passengers to safety.
And, most of all, we had the pilot of US Airways Flight 1549.
Chesley Sullenberger had remained as calm as if he flew with angels as he made a perfect landing, the nose and wings just right.
Was the author trying to write a poem?
Though I do have to say if I was on that flight, I probably would have lost control of my bowels.
Sorry Jane LOL
I have always had a lot of respect for pilots. Nerves of steel. This guy is truly a hero.
Somebody posted this was the anti-911. Thought that was appropriate.
Well, via Google News, we have one of those expert pilot commentators questioning whether both engines were really shut down by the bird strike. He suggested that it was common for a pilot to shut down the WRONG engine, thus disabling the plane.
... not buying it, but we’ll see what the NTSB says.
He is a Hero in all sense of the word. The Lord was with the passengers and crew on this day. The alternative would have been disastrous.
At least that's what I've been told.
prisoner6
Seems to me, in your words, that the Lord was with the pilot.
You know - even if this turned out to be true, it wouldn't worry me at all. The crew got the only thing that matters right and compared to that nothing else matters.
All safe. That's the bottom line. That's what they are trained for. That's what they are paid for. That's what they did.
I had similar thoughts. Whatever the technicalities, the pilot was not able to keep the plane in the air, and made the miraculous “water landing”. Amen.
I remember reading that there is a bird sanctuary at the end of the runway that the enviros would not let airport authorities remove. Every pilot knows about the bird problem at LGA. Now the chickens have come home to roost. Bird lives over peoples lives. It was only a matter of time before this happened. God bless the pilots and to Hell with the enviromental wackos.
As someone who flew small planes for years, I’m in awe. When you’re flying a little high-wing Cessna and you lose power, you can glide surprisingly well. Not so with low-wing planes, most of which have the glide ratio of a rock. After flying nothing but high-wing (wings above fuselage) for years, I decided to get checked out in a little snazzier plane, a high performance, retractable gear Piper, which is a low-wing. At 1/4 mile out from the runway threshold, about 800 AGL, the instructor told me to let him know when I had the runway made. Being used to the Cessnas, I looked at him and said, “I’ve had the runway made a long time.” He smiled and pulled the throttle back. That thing fell from the sky like a brick. At 1/4 mile and 800 feet of altitude, I would not have made the runway. And there is no doubt that the “brick phenomenon” is WAY worse in an airliner.
The point of my long-winded is this: The bird strikes happened shortly after takeoff. Low altitude. Low airspeed. Worst possible conditions. So when it happened, that plane went down FAST. To the passengers it probably felt instant. For a pilot to react that quickly and that perfectly is an awe-inspiring feat to me.
MM
How about a nationally televised, by all three networks and cable news channels ticker tape parade at about 10:00 AM on Tuesday, 1/20/09? Spend all that money on a good cause not some egotistical narcisist with multiple presonality disorders who thinks he can command the sun to rise and set on his word.
If I can correctly remember the words of an Aeronautical Engineering professor from Stanford (can't even remember name), "So, technically, they don't fall like a rock. They fall like 2/3 of a rock."
:-)
Good idea. Celebrate someone who has actually done something!
That is incredible!
prisoner6
I'm all for it. Followed by the televised extermination of the protected bird habitat at the end of the runway. Choose your gun...
That is definitely a consideration for every pilot that begins to secure an engine. I know I always thought about it whenever I did an inflight engine shutdown whether it was in the simulator or an actual emergency. Shutting down the good engine has happened more often than most would imagine. Whether cockpit procedures contributed to the emergency will be determined during the investigation. Fortunately, a post-accident investigation is performed by pragmatists (with few exceptions), rather than a reflexively laudatory public.
An airline pilot (since we are all members of an extended tribe), hopes that the flight deck crew only positively contributed to the successful resolution of the emergency. Since few, if any, of the posters on these forums have actual knowledge of what happened in that particular cockpit (including myself), it's a bit early to determine whether the crew was faultless in dealing with the emergency. I can't tell you, and nobody else can make that conclusion till the results of the investigation are released.
The A-320 has a remarkably diverse set of parameters that it keeps track of as it flies along. There will be no shortage of data from which to draw conclusions in the investigation. I'll stipulate that I'm a skeptic, but these investigations often turn up things that prove driving an airliner is a good deal more complex, than the general public is capable of absorbing. It is far more comforting to simply rejoice in the survival of the passengers and crew (as do I), than it is to sit back for a year and analyze the entire event from start to finish. That's why an honest “tribe member” will see what the investigation turns up.
There will be answers (since the aircraft has a huge memory of what has occurred). Joe Passenger will never be able to put the investigation results to use in their own lives, but the guys/gals that do this for a living will file the results away for “just in case”. They may never have to use the information, but then again they might.
Do not be surprised if the results of the NTSB report reach conclusions that are far different than what the public currently perceives. That is often the nature of these investigations, and this one has only just begun. You never really know what is going to be turned up.
By the way, sitting through the post accident reporting, that Fox News provided, was excruciating! Airline pilots flying till they're 68? Better to land in cold water because it is harder?!?!?
It went on from there, and then they started to repeat it. They had plenty of GREAT video. Why on earth did they think that they had to talk?
Stick to politics Fox News. Please.
Drama Queens like Shep @ Fox and the other NYC Media nancyboyz all got a boner being able to report this accident happening in front of their eyes. It was so simple and gave them an opportunity to dwell within the circle of true heroes instead of the boners they get in worshipping the Messiah. Network Nooz is dead to me!
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