US Air a/c crashes in NY.
 

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/0..._n_158263.html

looks a little surreal.

live on FOX now ( in hotel room In HKG)

per TV a bird strike

a good photo

No word on the pax yet

Some info here, http://abclocal.go.com/wabc/story?se...cal&id=6606410 atleast they got the a/c type right by the looks of things!

looks like something from a movie, I don't mean to laugh at the pics but it just looks quite funny, little a/c nose popping out of the water like that, it could almost be a scene from a Bond film!

Some reports say that it's possibly a multiple strike of geese, and that smoke was seen coming out of the right engine.


Congrats to the pilot and crew for the apparent safe ditching, but also hats off to Airbus; the aircraft did what it was designed to do in the event of a ditching, possibly resulting in a fatally free crash.

Just heard on the news all pax and crew are safe.

Just saw on Sunrise, Pilot reported double bird strike. Divers are at the scene but at this stage its not known if the divers can get to the aircraft

This shot is unbelievable.
http://static.10gen.com/alleyinsider...X=600&maxY=800

Judging by the ABC news film clip they are towing the plane down the river.... I assume this would to to assist in keeping it afloat and not let it sink?

From CNN, the water temp is 42 deg F (6 deg C) and the air temp is 21 deg F (-6 deg C)

Good coverage from CNN here

no its is floating down the river with the current

any bets how long it before it sinks??

When everything goes wrong... an outcome like that is amazing!

A great shot indeed AJ. I'd bet there would have been plenty of people witnessing the entire event, so I'm sure a fair amount of video and images to come.

David.M.

Reports are they have run a cable through the doors from tugs boats to keep it afloat and are pulling it closer to shore.

http://flightaware.com/live/flight/AWE1549

Hats off to the pilots for the ditching and to the crew and rescuers for the quick evacuation.

Quite amazing images really. I can't recall any other airliner ditching in water and remaining intact. It might be a first.

The apparent lack of major damage that might have caused it to sink could be due to a report that the pilot did not deploy the gear, hence a 'smoother' 'landing' and the ability to stay above water

Any chance this aircraft may be fully salvagable and be able to fly ever again?

No chance...not after ditching in salt water.


From www.news.com.au
http://www.news.com.au/story/0,27574...-23109,00.html

Good article with flight path mapped:

http://avherald.com/h?article=41370ebc&opt=0

Aircraft was N106US.

Interesting article Greg...especially this part:
Looking at the map in the article, he 'may' have made it, but the outcome suggests the pilot made the correct decision at the time.

Is the Hudson river salty?

Looking at Google Maps, it has a big mouth that flows right into the Atlantic Ocean on the eastern side of New York city, so I'd say it would be salty.

So after 3 minutes in the air at what height would they have been at to be able to assess what they were going to do.

Wouldn't have had much time surely. Looks like they had a good runway picture of the river the way the flight path went.

I read it that they were in the air for a total of 3 minutes. If the strike occurred 45 seconds into the flight, they'd be around 2000-2500' perhaps?
Not sure on the glide rate of an A320....:confused:

No way, be full of salt water, plus just about every operating system on it would cactus.

Very funny... :D

Some reports have suggested that the bird/s the aircraft hit were Canada Geese.
These large geese are known for travelling great distances at great heights, being recorded as high as 8000'. To compound the danger they often fly at night and can fly for up to 16 hours in a stretch.

Last year a flock of 4 Canada Geese were located along the south coast of NSW. These birds were thought to have come from New Zealand, and spent nearly a month in various locations from Ulladulla in the south to Shellharbour near Wollongong.
Thankfully they were 'removed' at Shellharbour before they could establish a population here.

Here's a picture of one I took at 'The Farm' near Shellharbour the day before they were removed.
http://i185.photobucket.com/albums/x...03-09_0014.jpg

So they are basically an unwanted species? because of their danger to aviation?

Sounds like ditching the aircraft was a great outcome, if they had tried to land and failed it would have been straight into the ground instead.

Unwanted out here because of their dominating nature and quick breeding. It's just a bonus to aviation that they got removed when they did.

Ahhhh ok, I thought they were one of those majestic breeds of geese, the ones that lay the golden eggs and all :D

Sound like the rats of the sky.

Amazing job by the flight crew to safely ditch the aircraft into the Hudson and allow everyone to survive. Amazing scenes to be honest.

Pilot has been named:

from smh.com.au

"The pilot has been named as Chesley Burnett "Sully" Sullenberger III, a former fighter pilot with the US Air Force and 40-year veteran of the aviation industry, according to the web site of his consulting firm, Safety Reliability Methods.

Mr Sullenberger's curriculum vitae states that he has been a pilot with US Airway since 1980. Before that he spent seven years flying F4 fighter jets with the US Air Force.

"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.

ABC quoted the mayor as saying Mr Sullenberger "walked the plane twice to verify if anyone was on board" before getting out himself."

And seems to be some confirmation that this is in fact the first succseful ditching of a commercial aviation aircraft.

from the same smh.com.au piece

The president of the Australian and International Pilots Association, Barry Jackson, said he believed this was the first successful ditching of a commercial passenger plane ever.

An online forum for pilots was buzzing in the wake of the incident, with many contributers also speculating that this was the first time a passenger jet had successfully ditched.

"Ditching" is an intentional emergency landing in water. It appears to happen occasionally in the military and with smaller aircraft in general aviation but is understood to be extremely rare for commercial passenger jets.

The whole article is at http://www.smh.com.au/news/world/exf...608938016.html

Cheers

M

You got a camera on the shotgun now, Nige? :p

On a more serious note .. the captain's CV can be found here (link courtesy of Mike Scott). Sometimes you just have the right guy in the right place at the right time.

I figured the gas cannon was a little too cumbersome when trying to get the flying subjects.........

It depends how you would discribe successful. There have been others, the Ethiopean 767 for example that I personaly would call a success because many got out alive. Probably the first time an a/c hasn't broken up and zero loss of life. Pretty good job would say.

I seem to recall from Air Disaster Vol 1 that the ALM/ONA DC-9 that ditched off the coast of St Croix back in 1970 didn't break up during the ditching, but lives were lost. That link doesn't mention the condition of the aircraft, however.

The Ethiopean one was interesting in that many survived the crash and break-up, but were drowned because they inflated their life jacket inside the a/c which meant they got stuck inside.

Looking at the footage of the US Airways crash it seems as if very few people had a life jacket on (guess not much time with this one).

Is Nigel taking his work home? No bird stands a chance!

Is it my imagination or is there a Concorde in the background of this vid http://au.youtube.com/watch?v=lF8q6XcCNSY @1.56 mins?

Cheers,
Dino

P.s. I seem to recall the DC-9 that ditched was intact

Ahh yes, and out of those who did, guess who didn't listen to the safety demonstration....

http://img222.imageshack.us/img222/5...ashmainxf1.jpg

:cool:

Shamelessly pinched off PPRuNe...