Blue Side Up

Ah, there’s nothing like the Hudson River in January. Luckily for the 150 passengers and 5 crew members on board US Airways flight 1549, they didn’t have to wait long when their flight ditched into the Hudson after a dual engine flame out. Shortly after take off from La Guardia, the Airbus A320 hit a flock of birds and both engines flamed out at an altitude of only 3200 feet. The pilot was given vectors to the west in an attempt to land at a nearby New Jersey airport, but decided against it in order to not risk crashing into a populated area. He managed to successfully ditch the aircraft into the Hudson where ferry boats started rescuing people immediately. Amazingly, all 155 people on board survived with only a few serious injuries.

Let me first start out with a very profound wow. As someone who studies aviation accidents on a regular basis, there are a number of things that amaze me about this story.

First and probably foremost, it is amazing that the plane didn’t break apart on impact. If the aircraft in question were a jet with high mounted engines, such as a Bombardier CRJ or maybe an MD88, then I would understand. But aircraft with engines mounted under the wings usually don’t do so well with water landings. I am reminded of Ethiopian Airlines 961 that landed in the India Ocean after running out of fuel. The Boeing 767 in question attempted to ditch, but the left engine dug into the water on impact and ripped the plane apart; 125 of 175 were killed. So the fact that the pilot managed to put the aircraft down softly enough to not rip the wings off is an impressive feat in itself.

I am also amazed that the plane didn’t start sinking right away. Maybe this goes hand in hand with a rough landing, but usually giant hunks of metal start to fill with water very quick and people don’t have enough time to escape. It seems that in this case, the fuselage was in good enough condition to allow everyone to pour out onto the wings and simply wait there until boats showed up to rescue them. If ever I saw such an organized emergency landing, it was this one.

And to be clear, this was not a crash landing. It was an emergency landing. There is a very important difference. Although you may be inclined to say that the pilot crashed into the river, he in fact landed on the river. The difference between a crash landing and an emergency landing is simple: the pilot in command. His quick thinking saved the lives of everyone on board and possibly of people on the ground had he chosen to try and fly over New Jersey to land at an airport.

As someone who wants to fly for a living, it’s pilots like this that really make you reflect on your training and make you ask yourself: “What would I have done?”. I bet that there are only a handful of pilots working for any given carrier that could have pulled this one off. I’m just glad it ended up the way it did.

Here is a powerpoint someone emailed me, so I can’t take credit for it. If you know who created it, let me know and I’ll put their name down. I’ve turned the slides into jpegs so they’re viewable online. Just click the first picture and you can cycle through them from there.