Hero Pilot Safely Lands US Airways Jet in Hudson River Miraculously All Passengers Are Safe; ABC's Robin Roberts Witnessed the Crash By RUSSELL GOLDMAN, RICH ESPOSITO and EMILY FRIEDMAN
Jan. 15, 2009 —
Some 150 people aboard a US Airways plane en route to Charlotte, N.C., from New York City were rescued today in a lightning-fast effort following the jet's crash into the frigid waters of the Hudson River off the West Side of Manhattan.
US Airways flight 1549, an A-320 manufactured by Airbus, went down in the near-freezing waters shortly after the pilot reported two bird strikes.
In the aftermath of the crash, the pilot, Chesley Burnett "Sully" Sullenberger III, was praised for his efforts at landing the plane softly on the river's surface, allowing rescue crews to get to the passengers before the plane sank.
"It would appear that the pilot did a masterful job of landing the plane in the river, and then making sure everybody got out," New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg said at a news conference late today.
The mayor said Sullenberger "walked the plane twice to verify if anyone was onboard" before exiting himself.
"You've got to give it to the pilot. He made a hell of a landing," said Jeff Kolodjay, 31, a passenger on the plane from Norwalk, Conn.
For more on Robin Roberts' eyewitness account of the crash, watch "Good Morning America" tomorrow morning at 7 a.m. ET
All passengers and crew aboard were reported safe after New York City firefighters, police and ferries rushed to the aid of the US Airways jet, which floated in the river near the historic aircraft carrier The Intrepid.
Passengers wearing yellow life jackets were rescued off the wings as others held onto the plane's seat cushions, which serve as flotation devices. Some of those rescued were taken to area hospitals to be treated for exposure and secondary injuries. Some 50 other people -- including several children -- were kept at a ferry terminal and warmed with blankets.
Kolodjay told reporters after being rescued that the effort was "organized chaos," and that male passengers allowed women to deplane first.
"I'm just happy to be alive, to be honest, I don't know what else to say," said Kolodjay.
"Our main concern is the rescue effort and whether people could swim," an emergency worker said onshore near the main emergency staging area where passengers were taken.
The National Transportation Safety Board has sent a team to the crash site to investigate.
'Can't Believe What I Saw'
The plane was carrying as many as 148 passengers and five or six crew members, according to the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey.
Only 30 seconds after takeoff at 3:26 p.m. ET, the pilot reported two bird strikes and said he wanted to return to LaGuardia Airport.
Controllers began giving him directions for return, but the pilot requested clearance to land at the nearby Teterboro airport in New Jersey. The tower reportedly lost contact soon after that last transmission.
Commuter boats in the area were seen fishing people from the river and rescuing passengers standing on the plane's wings after the crash.
ABC News' Robin Roberts, who saw the plane crash from her apartment window, said it appeared to be a controlled landing.
"It completely just hit the water full force, never bounced or anything like that, and came to a relatively quick stop," Roberts said. "But& it didn't skim along the water. There was very little trauma to the aircraft. It was& I'm still& can't believe what I saw."
"I would say, 10 seconds -- I& have binoculars. I could see that the front door was, they were able to open the front door, and within a couple of minutes a water taxi just happened to be in that direction, and I could see that it was making its way to the airplane as fast as possible," she said.
Freezing Temps, Fast Action
The water temperature in the river was reported at 40 degrees, just above freezing. The air temperature hovered near 20 degrees.
Hospitals in both New York and New Jersey were alerted to the crash and in crisis mode, but within an hour of the crash many were told to stand down as most passengers appeared in good shape. Some 40 minutes after the plane went down, authorities reported all the passengers were rescued and safe, though hospitals were accepting some rescued passengers for treatment for exposure.
Pat Smith, spokesman for the New York Waterway, which operates the ferries that came to the plane's rescue, said the location was near the "waterway commuter route [and] as many as 10 ferries can respond within minutes at this time of day."
Bird Strikes Happen 'All the Time'
John Ostrom of the Metropolitan Airports Commission out of Minneapolis chairs the Bird Strikes Committee, which advises the aviation industry on wildlife management to eliminate possible hazards.
"There's a variety of ways a bird can take down a plane," he told ABC News today. "There have been instances where birds the size of robins bring a plane down, all the way up to Canada geese."
Birds can fly into plane engines, shutting them down, or cause pilots to lose control of the plane by penetrating the windshield. And there's not much pilots can do to avoid bird strikes, which happen "every day," according Ostrom.
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-------------------- L'enfer est plein de bonnes volontés et désirs
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