Pilot 'in Shock' as He Landed Jet in River

Wall Street Journal ^ | Feb 8, 2009 | SUSAN CAREY

[BAW]

After US Airways Flight 1549 crash-landed in the Hudson River in New York last month, flight attendant Doreen Welsh, stationed in the back of the A320 jetliner, tried to close an emergency exit opened by a passenger, allowing water to rush in.

According to an interview aired Sunday on CBS News's "60 Minutes," Ms. Welsh said after a passenger "came back and pushed me back and opened the door," garbage cans and coffee pots "were floating" and "things were flying. It was crazy back there."

But the veteran attendant at US Airways Group Inc. said she "started yelling...and pushing people and getting people to go over the seats" toward the front exits. Ms. Welsh, 58 years old, has been flying with the airline for 38 years. "As I was getting up, I thought I might actually live," she said. Ms. Welsh was seriously injured with a leg gash.

The plane, which collided with a flock of birds just after takeoff from New York's LaGuardia Airport on Jan. 15, lost power in both engines. Capt. Chesley Sullenberger, 58, a 29-year veteran of the airline, thought about returning to LaGuardia or landing at New Jersey's Teterboro Airport.

But, according to the 60 Minutes interview and air-traffic-control radio transmissions released last week, the pilot quickly determined that "the only viable alternative, the only level, smooth place sufficiently large to land an airliner was the river." So he turned the powerless plane, carrying 150 passengers and five crew members, and glided south to line up with the Hudson.

[headstamp 2]

Helluva outboard motor.

[metmom]

How long would an intact plane stay afloat if no one opened the doors? Or at least not opened the doors below the level of the water?

[Viking2002]

I'm not a pilot, either (hell, I won't even fly anymore since the TSA monkeys were federalized), but I read somewhere that there are some sort of windmill type of fans that are deployed on the Airbus models, and they can generate limited energy to help power the hydraulic systems on a stalled airliner. No thrust, but at least they have some control of their flaps.

[LoneRangerMassachusetts]

Funny after plenty of posts giving you good solid answers...to your assumptions/questions...you chose to only reply to the one by LRM Just an observation.........

I've spent years here at FR identifying targets and honing my needling skills. They are starting to pay off.

[valkyry1]

believe it or not, that ‘little outboard’ as we will call it here can provide essential hydraulic and electrical power, just not as much as the engines or APU can.

[HighWheeler]

If you want to read a story about a Jumbo Jet gliding for miles, read about the Gimli Glider at the link.

What an incredible story.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gimli_Glider

[PAR35]

Read up on the Gimli Glider.
Or also read about United 232

[valkyry1]

All I can say is ‘it depends’, but not a whole long time. But them being out in a freezing river, good thing the boats got there right away

[sionnsar]

I don’t understand how the pilot can have control of anything if there’s no engines. No engines means no hydraulics. No hydralics means there’s no controls period.

They apparently had an auxiliary source of power fueled by a wind-fan source that could be deployed in such situations. Never thought about it before before but it makes sense.

[Salvation]

If I’m not mistaken the pilot had also flown gliders.

[sionnsar]

See #17.

[midwyf]

AMEN!!!!!!

[JRandomFreeper]

I know fighter AC have hydraulic accumulators that provide hydraulics for a limited time.... Question for those familiar with commercial AC... do they have accumulators as well?

/johnny

[sionnsar]

All big commmercial and a lot of small commercial planes have a small jet engine on the very tip of the rear fuselage, called an APU, Auxiliary Power Unit. They are used on the tarmac when the main engines are off, and in this case, when they were in the air with the engines off.

And Alaska Airlines likes to turn these off about the time the plane reaches the gate so that if you are a passenger in the rear of the plane you are pouring sweat LONG before you reach the exit. Too bad about your next seatmate -- just tell 'em your last flight was Alaska.

I don;t fly Alaska unless there's no choice.

[Ezekiel]

“According to an interview aired Sunday on CBS News’s “60 Minutes,” Ms. Welsh said after a passenger “came back and pushed me back and opened the door,” <<<

Idiot passenger could have killed everyone on the plane.

I'll vote for confused, desperate, and panicky, but for obvious reasons can't rule out ROP.

[Niteflyr]

“No engines means no hydraulics”

I totally dispute this assertion. Of course there are hydraulics, no design would be foolish enough to make that all dependent on engine systems.

That's it in a nutshell ....no designer would be foolish enough to make flight controls dependent on engine operation. All engines do is provide forward motion...the airplane will fly without them...not for long...but fly perfectly fine. In this case it was one huge glider.

Signed: Freeper, pilot and aircraft mechanic

[Niteflyr]

So the pilot didn’t fly anything. The plane just went down the way it chose to, no thanks to the pilot.

Maybe in some alternate universe!

[NCC-1701]

"...And the Hand of God for those of faith...."

[Osage Orange]

Ha!!

[Doctor Raoul]

Couric isn’t worthy to breath the air in the same room as these heros.