US Airway plane crashes into the Hudson River

[shadron]

Pic of the pilot, and a few more details here: http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20090116/ts_nm/us_crash_newyork2_9

Eh, well it had a pic of him when I grabbed the URL. He is Chesley B. "Sully" Sullenberger III of Danville, Calif. He apparently owns his own flight safety company. An accident expert in Canada said that landing a passenger jet in water without the plane coming apart was very extraordinary.

By count, one claim of miracle by the NY gov, and all the rest of the story focused on the pilot's skill. Good score for that one.

 

[BenBurch]

Amazing that the wings didn't break apart during the "landing", provided that the engines seem to be lower than the fuselage, and thus the first to touch water. Or at least very quicky after the tail touches down.

[qimg]http://img76.imageshack.us/img76/6563/airbusa3202uh4.jpg[/qimg]

As I understand it, if it worked right, the shear pin in the engine mount should have sheared and the engines would have pulled free.

EDIT: Ratant beat me to it.

 

[macdoc]

CNN said there is ditching mechanism the pilot activates just before impact that closes off all conduits into the plane.

The cabin is of course full sealed/pressurized. He has lighter than water fuel in the wings and the belly of the plane is pretty sealed as the landing gear is up when ditching.

It only really starts to sink when the doors are opened. Planes are light but rigid.

Most ditchings tho end with a wing digging in and the seals rupture.

An Ethiopian Airlines Boeing 767, Ethiopian 961, ditches in the Indian Ocean

Here is the video - the plane was high jacked and ran out of fuel.

Plane Crashes into Ocean - LiveVideo.com

The pilot in the Hudson river was brilliant both in decision making and execution. Well trained crew too.

Turns out he is a sailplane instructor - seems these guys are exceptionally good deadstick.

The Gimli Glider incident right here in Canada was also a sailplane pilot in command and when they did the simulations....not one other pilot/copilot pair could duplicate that incredible bit of flying ..all the others crashed.

It's a great read and catch the movie if you can.

The Gimli Glider / Air Canada

 

[wipeout]

Saw this linked at the Airliners.net forum:

http://www4.passur.com/lga.html

Set it to 15:26 for January 15th and watch the plane heading north from the airport in the center of the map. It may take a minute or two to load.

Click on the plane for altitude and other information. AWE1549 is correct. It goes north then turns west and finally south into the river.

A helicopter N461SA (shown as a plane) has to take avoiding action as it comes down right at them. The helicopter then does a 180 and goes back to follow the plane, circling where it went down. They do sightseeing, might have some interesting pictures and footage.

Something else I read there were suggestions that the computer systems deserve some credit too for keeping the plane at the lowest possible speed without stalling and, almost unbelievably, the Airbus has a "ditch" setting for just this event.

 

[Luciana]

The cabin is of course full sealed/pressurized. He has lighter than water fuel in the wings and the belly of the plane is pretty sealed as the landing gear is up when ditching.

It only really starts to sink when the doors are opened. Planes are light but rigid.

I have a question, maybe those who are monitoring the matter more carefully might answer.

The airplane hits the water, must have submerged a little than reemerged. (right?). Then someone opens the emergency door, which happens to swing upwards. Even so, water enters the cabin. Shouldn't it be fast enough as to cause a panic? Shouldn't the water fill up fast enough that the plane would submerge, if not exactly quickly... but how come people could stand on the wings for that long??

Btw, what a beautiful picture, almost surreal, and a monument to human intelligence, solidarity and ingenuity.

 

[BPSCG]

So, I've listened to 17.5 bajillion flight attendant tutorials on how my seat can be used for a flotation device and directions on how to use my life jacket. Then I read this:

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.
​

In that case, I would like a little more instruction on how to respond to my plane breaking up, balls of flame rushing up the aisle and other additional details that would seem to go hand-in-hand with uncontrolled and unsuccessful landings into bodies of water, which are apparently the norm.

link

 

[ferd burfle]

Talking heads and witnesses are thanking god and claiming "miracle" that no one was injured, completely ignoring the enormous skill of the very human pilot and that the sky ghost guided the birds (it that's what happened) into the engines.

Yes, yes, yes. If I see that idiot Diane Sawyer look into the camera one more time and utter the "M" word with her phony gravitas, I think my head will asplode. I hope we hear lots more about how decades of training and experience was the reason this ended so well.

Ferd

 

[Cainkane1]

Unless I'm mistaken P.E.T.A. is suing the airline for killing the geese.

 

[Patricio Elicer]

Btw, what a beautiful picture, almost surreal, and a monument to human intelligence, solidarity and ingenuity.

Yeah, I was thinking the same thing yesterday after seeing the pictures of people standing on the wing.

Surreal, strange, misplaced,..., even funny.

Who would've figured!. At one point, all those elegant businessmen boarding the plane, and a few minutes later standing on the wing of a semi-submerged plane in the middle of the near-frozen waters of the Hudson river.

I'm very glad that this horror story had a happy ending.

 

[Blackadder_no]

The motors on those types of planes are generally intended to seperate from the wings, to prevent their "scooping" from pulling the fuselage into the water.
The hijacked A-300 crashing off that beach in the Caribbean had this occur.

I read somewhere that the engines are attached by just two bolts, one front and one rear.The rear bolt is apparently designed somewhat weaker than the front bolt, so that if the plane has to do a belly landing, the engines will break off at the rear, then swing up and over the wing.

 

[I Ratant]

I read somewhere that the engines are attached by just two bolts, one front and one rear.The rear bolt is apparently designed somewhat weaker than the front bolt, so that if the plane has to do a belly landing, the engines will break off at the rear, then swing up and over the wing.

.
The motors seperate downwards. The large fan opening acts like a scoop. pulling the motor under the wing.
I've never heard this other description.

 

[dudalb]

There was some speculation that a thin film of ice might have prevented the plane from somersaulting and breaking up. If true that is mighty fortunate. Though praise for the pilot is still in order. A former Air Force pilot from what I hear.

The pilot was a Colorado Springs graduate.

 

[Bell]

.
The motors seperate downwards. The large fan opening acts like a scoop. pulling the motor under the wing.
I've never heard this other description.

There has been a crash in the US (I don't remember where or which airliner) where, on a jet taking off, the engine broke off and did flip over the wing. I can't remember if this was due to engine's trust though.

 

[Travis]

I read somewhere that the engines are attached by just two bolts, one front and one rear.The rear bolt is apparently designed somewhat weaker than the front bolt, so that if the plane has to do a belly landing, the engines will break off at the rear, then swing up and over the wing.

Didn't that design feature cause a horrible crash on takeoff back in the 80's?


ETA: Bell beat me to it!

 

[Bell]

Come to think of it, iirc, the back bolt snapped, which caused the back of the engine to drop, making the engine point upward in an angle. Since the engine was at full trust because of the take off, the engine was pushed upwards. Since the front of the engine was still attached to the wing, this all made the engine to flip over the wing.

 

[Skeptic Guy]

The motors on those types of planes are generally intended to seperate from the wings, to prevent their "scooping" from pulling the fuselage into the water.
The hijacked A-300 crashing off that beach in the Caribbean had this occur.

Just Googled it. It was indeed in Africa, off the coast of the Comoros islands.

Wikipedia

YouTube

Eta: The plane was a Boeing 767, but I assume we are talking about the same event?

Take some pictures and post them for us

Yes, that's the one. I worked for WTN at the time and we negotiated with the tourist that caught that video and bought the footage. It was I that arranged for the satellite feed that brought that video in. And I was in the MCR when it was recorded.

As has been said, the plane was hijacked, ran out of gas, left wing hit a submerged reef and the plane cartwheeled into the ocean. Most of the 120 or so that were killed drowned trying to get out.

I have a question, maybe those who are monitoring the matter more carefully might answer.

The airplane hits the water, must have submerged a little than reemerged. (right?). Then someone opens the emergency door, which happens to swing upwards. Even so, water enters the cabin. Shouldn't it be fast enough as to cause a panic? Shouldn't the water fill up fast enough that the plane would submerge, if not exactly quickly... but how come people could stand on the wings for that long??

Btw, what a beautiful picture, almost surreal, and a monument to human intelligence, solidarity and ingenuity.

I don't think it actually submerged that much. At those speeds, it was like hitting concrete. I heard one of the passengers say that water started coming in around the window seals, there may need to be some redesign on future planes. I heard a report that it was the air trapped in the cargo hold that kept the plane above water, though I don't know for sure.

Also, they are now reporting that the left engine is missing and the suspect that the right engine is also missing, though it is underwater at the dock.

 

[Corsair 115]

There has been a crash in the US (I don't remember where or which airliner) where, on a jet taking off, the engine broke off and did flip over the wing. I can't remember if this was due to engine's trust though.

You're probably thinking of American Airlines Flight 191, a DC-10 which crashed after taking off from Chicago's O'Hare airport when the left engine came off the wing. The accident happened on May 25, 1979. Here's the Wikipedia page on the accident; here's a link to a PDF file of the NTSB report on the incident.

 

[bruto]

And the word of the day, soon to become a favorite, I predict, is

SNARGE!

 

[leftysergeant]

Ironicly, this incident kind of up-staged Bush's last big chance to run the news cycle for the day. For eight years, people have been living in fear while government officials have tried to tell them that they were safe as long as an authoritarian systewm of public safety was in place. We NEEDED protection.

And ordinary citizens and well-trained unionized workers did what needed to be done.

And about the mandatory retirement age for airline pilots?

Dude's 57 years old and still seems to know what he is doing. Thje airlines think he is worthless in another five years.

Let's re-evaluate this a bit. Remember the man who pulled off that crash landing at Souix Falls a few years back.

 

[BenBurch]

You're probably thinking of American Airlines Flight 191, a DC-10 which crashed after taking off from Chicago's O'Hare airport when the left engine came off the wing. The accident happened on May 25, 1979. Here's the Wikipedia page on the accident; here's a link to a PDF file of the NTSB report on the incident.

I saw it happen at extreme distance... There was a fireball and smoke and I didn't realize it was an aircraft until I got to where I was going and there was a television on in the lobby.