Friday, January 16, 2009

US Airways "Miracle on the Hudson" Flight 1549

I earned my private pilots license at a young age of 18 and have flown in everything from a hang glider to a B-17.

Years of flying have taught me a lot of things mainly "Once the Gear is up Every Flight becomes a Maiden Voyage".

Well nothing could have been more true for Captain Chesley “Sully” Sullenberger, pilot of US Airways Flight 1549, who safely glided his Airbus A320 onto New York City's Hudson River.



Sullenberger, 57, is a 29-year veteran at US Airways, an Air Force Academy Graduate and a former Air Force fighter pilot and is also very lucky.

Water landings, known as ditching in aviation circles rarely turn out as well as flight 1549. By saying rarely I mean as in almost never. In a flight that went all kinds of wrong, "Sully" had everything else line up in just the right way, to get the plane down safely.

There is only one explanation the hand of God.


Above Captian Sullenberger and his A320 about 300 AGL moments before ditching in New York's chilly Hudson River.

More "news" and amazing photos of US Airways Flight 1539 at Life Floating By

3 comments:

Unknown said...

As we praise the entire crew for their incredible effort in saving all the passengers, I realize after seeing them awaiting for help on the wings that very few passengers are wearing those yellow inflatable vests. I wonder why.
Also, with the innumerable quantity of tourists at any given moment in NYC with their videocams fired up, isn't it amazing that no video of the plane going down was taken. Weren't there tourists right there aboard the Circle Line tugs for instance?

Anonymous said...

The pics over on Life Floating By rock!

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