Hudson River Ditching

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WhoozOn1st

Engineer
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With birdstrike initially suspected, it's only a matter of time before CNN's Lou Dobbs starts calling for a 30-thousand-foot fence along our northern border to prevent illegal alien Canadian geese from downing U.S. airliners.

I have a bit of experience with birdstrike. Working on jets for the Navy - in the 1970s - we had an A-4 Skyhawk bingo from a carrier off the coast after hitting a bird.

Serious damage to the wingroot. I think many people don't grasp the massive force in foot-pounds involved in hitting a bird at high speed. And sucked into engines? Forget it. Sheesh, did that A-4 ever STINK. Nobody wanted to go near it. Dried bird guts splattered all over, even after a trip to the washrack.

Finally several of us wrapped wet towels loaded with aftershave around our faces and made rudimentary repairs. Enough to send the plane back to the carrier, where THOSE guys could deal with it.

Very glad the Hudson River incident turned out as well as it did.
 
With birdstrike initially suspected, it's only a matter of time before CNN's Lou Dobbs starts calling for a 30-thousand-foot fence along our northern border to prevent illegal alien Canadian geese from downing U.S. airliners.
I have a bit of experience with birdstrike. Working on jets for the Navy - in the 1970s - we had an A-4 Skyhawk bingo from a carrier off the coast after hitting a bird.

Serious damage to the wingroot. I think many people don't grasp the massive force in foot-pounds involved in hitting a bird at high speed. And sucked into engines? Forget it. Sheesh, did that A-4 ever STINK. Nobody wanted to go near it. Dried bird guts splattered all over, even after a trip to the washrack.

Finally several of us wrapped wet towels loaded with aftershave around our faces and made rudimentary repairs. Enough to send the plane back to the carrier, where THOSE guys could deal with it.

Very glad the Hudson River incident turned out as well as it did.
I was going to start a thread about this. Its truly amazing that everything turned out to be okay and all the passengers were able to get out and no one was seriously hurt.

Thanks for the interesting story about your bird strike experience :lol:

For those wanting to know more this is a good story on the events

http://www.reuters.com/article/topNews/idU...lBrandChannel=0
 
I hear that DHS has placed a lookout for the following suspects travelling south in a V shaped formation:

e469.jpg


Enough joking about stupid hateful stereotypes, how about a round of applause for a flight crew that had their stuff together! That's one hell of a landing to stick!
 
Yes, great flying. Watching interviews of the passengers, looks like the pilots decided the best thing to do was not try to stretch their luck making it back to the runway, but to set it up for the best possible water landing.

Good job!

BTW my son-in-law and grandson made a connection in NYC for a flight up to Bradley Int'l this afternoon, you can bet when I heard a plane had gone down in the Hudson on tv that they had 100% of my attention.
 
That's one hell of a landing to stick!
Amen to that! Especially when you've got a dead stick, as it's being reported that both engines were out. That means limited power to move the rudder and other control surfaces, all while trying to dodge the GW Bridge, river traffic, and still achieve a smooth landing that doesn't break the plane apart.

And thank god that it happened today and not 3 days from now when there will most likely be ice in the Hudson River thanks to the current freezing temps. We're expecting a low of 8 tonight in the city.
 
Especially when you've got a dead stick, as it's being reported that both engines were out. That means limited power
Does anybody know if the A-320 has a RAT - ram air turbine? Back in the day, the Navy planes I worked on had RATs. In the event of engine failure the pilot would "pop the RAT." It would emerge from the fuselage or wing (depending on the model) and provide at least a minimum of electricity as its blades whirled in the airstream to generate current.

Despite all the media yap about the engines being under the wing and liable to hit the water first, I think the pilot probably made a serious landing flare so the tail would hit first, thereby mitigating the impact. And I knew right off the bat that it was fuel keeping the plane from immediately going down in the river.

I think it might have been a very different story with a plane at the end of its flight.
 
When I saw this Reuters photo, the one-word caption sprang to mind and ... I just couldn't help myself!



Since all ended well, I don't feel so bad about injecting a little humor :)
 
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Especially when you've got a dead stick, as it's being reported that both engines were out. That means limited power
Does anybody know if the A-320 has a RAT - ram air turbine? Back in the day, the Navy planes I worked on had RATs. In the event of engine failure the pilot would "pop the RAT." It would emerge from the fuselage or wing (depending on the model) and provide at least a minimum of electricity as its blades whirled in the airstream to generate current.

Despite all the media yap about the engines being under the wing and liable to hit the water first, I think the pilot probably made a serious landing flare so the tail would hit first, thereby mitigating the impact. And I knew right off the bat that it was fuel keeping the plane from immediately going down in the river.

I think it might have been a very different story with a plane at the end of its flight.
See this simple schematic, shows a RAT on the 320

A320 hydraulic & fuel controls
 
When I saw this Reuters photo, the one-word caption sprang to mind and ... I just couldn't help myself!


Since all ended well, I don't feel so bad about injecting a little humor :)
Even the Swiss don't have plane to boat transfers......
 
Funny, my wife and I were on a flight last month. After the obligatory safety demonstration and the "unlikely event of a water landing" portion, I mentioned to my wife that I cannot ever remember an incident in which the inflatable chutes were used as rafts. One month later.... Wow, is all I can say.

There are often moments of silence to remember those who died in a tragedy. Maybe there should be a moment of silence to be thankful for those 155 who survived due to the skill and bravery of the crew, rescuers, and the passengers themselves. And lets not forget Airbus, who designed and built a plane that took a lickin and kept on floating.

Was anyone watching or listening to CNN? Those dimwits were showing the plane sinking and thought the passengers were still on board. They were speculating with their "experts" how they could open the doors to let the passengers escape without immediately sinking the plane and drowning everyone who did not get out. I pictured Ernest Borgnine and Shelley Winters on board. Then they interviewed a survivor (who was on land, I might add), and that person mentioned, matter-of-factly, that everyone got out within minutes of the ditching. SURPRISE! Wolf Blitzer should stick to politics.

I think I want C. B. Sullenberger at the controls of my next flight. Maybe US Airways could charge a Sullenberger surcharge? I'd pay.
 
Ons view shown on the news showed maybe 7-8 ferry type boats all around the aircraft. I didn't realize there were that many larger watercraft on the rivers around Manhattan. And they said they showed up so fast it was almost like they were waiting for the plane to hit the water. Right place - right time.
 
Right place - right time.
It goes beyond that. On the radio last night it was said that the he had the state of mind to try and put down where the water taxi's run. That way like you said there could be a very quick response. I don't know who this guy was, but he sure did one h3ll of a good job out there.
 
Ons view shown on the news showed maybe 7-8 ferry type boats all around the aircraft. I didn't realize there were that many larger watercraft on the rivers around Manhattan. And they said they showed up so fast it was almost like they were waiting for the plane to hit the water. Right place - right time.
Yes, high speed ferry service to Manhattan has become rather popular around here and the plane went down right in between to major terminals for the ferry service. So odds are that there were already one or two ferries in motion, and they quickly dispatched every ferry that they had a captain for and could get running quickly. Without a doubt that saved many lives as they were able to get the people out of the water and wind rather quickly.
 
HERE is a very good story on the flight crew, especially the captain.
I'm curious what experience the pilot may have had with intentional water landings in the past, if any. There are certainly differences between landing a single engine floatplane and an Airbus glider on the water, but at the same time, I'd imagine that if he was qualified to land float planes on the water, that would have helped his chances with this landing.
 
Funny, my wife and I were on a flight last month. After the obligatory safety demonstration and the "unlikely event of a water landing" portion, I mentioned to my wife that I cannot ever remember an incident in which the inflatable chutes were used as rafts. One month later.... Wow, is all I can say.
I had heard (or read on Wikipedia?) sometime in the last year that no plane had ever made a successful water landing resulting in deployment of the rafts. I don't know if that was true.

Last night I visited a friend, and asked him if he'd heard the news. He said yes, but it seemed uninteresting since everything went according to plan with the rescue. That's the whole point of why it's amazing, I said! A plane crash-landed and nobody died or was even seriously injured! It hadn't occurred to him how unusual that was.

I'm impressed not only at how quickly the boats were on the scene but at how none of them were in the way when the plane landed. It hit the water at about 140 mph, and presumably "taxied" for some distance before coming to rest.

Sullenberger had glider training, but flying a dead plane is not the same thing as flying a glider. The number of things to do that he had never done before, in such a short space of time... tell air traffic control we can't make it to la guardia and are ditching in the river... make sure we're going completely straight, because there's no rudder and no brakes once we're in the water... all flaps up... all air intakes closed... announce "brace for impact" to the cabin in a calm voice... nose up, can't actually see the water out the window... wait for it, wait for it... splashdown! Wow.
 
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