how do you successfully land a passenger jet in water?

[Bert Bates]

Or maybe, more importantly, how do you practice?

[Maneesh Godbole]

This way.
The pilot deserves a medal or something.

[Henry Wong]

Apparently, the captain who landed the plane, has 40 years of experience. So... Based on his age, he should be close to mandatory retirement.

This makes total sense... :roll:

Henry

[Pat Farrell]

Henry Wong wrote:Based on his age, he should be close to mandatory retirement.

He's 57, mandatory retirement is 60.

If you remember the Sioux City DC10 crash in 1989, the pilot there landed the airplane without any controls (elevator, rudder, aelerons, flaps, etc. While there were over 100 fatalities, over 150 folks survived. It was an amazing display of skill. They forced his retirement months after the crash.

It is true that skills weaken with age, but we have two cases where experience saved hundreds of lives

[Marc Peabody]

Doesn't landing require land?

[Pat Farrell]

Marc Peabody wrote:Doesn't landing require land?

The Navy fighter pilots "land" without land all the time. And some of the US space capsules landed in the ocean.

Does seem to be a strange use of the word.

[Mike Simmons]

Touch down? Splash down? Cease flying?

Navy pilots at lease come down on something large and solid, so I can see calling that a landing. I wonder what hydroplane pilots call it though?

[Henry Wong]

A couple of interesting facts....

The first boat to the rescue was a ferry. In fact, the first half dozen or so boats to the rescue were ferries. Interestingly, this is practiced many times, all the ferries all go to a location, rescue all passengers, and triage to one of the ports -- where medical is ready. Of course, this is done in case a ferry gets into trouble -- I don't think anyone thought it will be used by a jumbo jet.

The first "reponders" were told that the plane was at the hudson river, near 48th street (I think)... This was changed to near 40th street. Near 30th street. etc. The plane ended up near Battery Park City.

Henry

[Jeanne Boyarsky]

I found it interesting that the pilot served as an Air Force pilot. I'm sure they provide much more intense flight training than an airline.

Just to clarify/expand Henry's comment, the plane DID land in the 40's. The headlines all said "Miracle on 47/48th street." (At least they did that day; they seem to have been changed to "miracle on the hudson" by now.)

So what the first responders were told was correct. As they were rescuing (and presumably afterwards too), the plane kept floating down the river. They tied it up at Battery Park City. There must be a lot of momentum from a landing in addition to current! The reason I remember that the 447/48th was correct because that's where the ferries that helped out were based.

While this is based on memory, I did check the first link Google returned to make sure before posting. Here's a reference:
http://www.travelwithval.com/news/2009/01/miracle_on_the_hudson.htm

[Martha Simmons]

I wondered how much international coverage the story got, so I asked my parents who are in Russia if they heard anything. They said it's a big news in Russia too, and retold me the story with lots of details I never heard of.

[Ulf Dittmer]

Jeanne Boyarsky wrote:I found it interesting that the pilot served as an Air Force pilot. I'm sure they provide much more intense flight training than an airline.

I think the majority of commercial airline pilots start out in the USAF, RAF, Luftwaffe or what have you. I don't have numbers to back this up, but one of the major reasons of joining one of those organizations is to join a commercial airline upon retirement, and then earn the big bucks that you didn't get while in service.

Martha Simmons wrote:I wondered how much international coverage the story got, so I asked my parents who are in Russia if they heard anything. They said it's a big news in Russia too...

It got a lot of coverage here, too, but then, Airbus is a half German company, and proud of their flight safety record -especially when compared to Boeing- so that may be part of the reason.

[Pat Farrell]

Ulf Dittmer wrote:I think the majority of commercial airline pilots start out in the USAF, RAF, Luftwaffe or what have you. I don't have numbers to back this up, but one of the major reasons of joining one of those organizations is to join a commercial airline upon retirement, and then earn the big bucks that you didn't get while in service.

Yes, you need thousands of hours of piloting a jet to be considered. Its insanely expensive to obtain unless you are flying for a Government.

And of course, the USAF, RAF, etc. pilots are very very good.

[Monu Tripathi]

You can abate the casualities by making sure your passengers are good swimmers!

[Frank Silbermann]

Jeanne Boyarsky wrote:I found it interesting that the pilot served as an Air Force pilot. I'm sure they provide much more intense flight training than an airline.

Just to clarify/expand Henry's comment, the plane DID land in the 40's. The headlines all said "Miracle on 47/48th street." (At least they did that day; they seem to have been changed to "miracle on the hudson" by now.)

I hope everyone got the ironic reference in the headline "Miracle on 47th Street."

That was a movie from the late 1940s about a little girl, a rich precocious brat who was too cynical to believe in Santa Claus -- until she actually met the real Santa Claus while he was working in the famous Christmas display of Macy's department store in Manhattan. (Santa almost got fired when a little boy asked for a certain toy for Christmas, and he said OK. The mother angrily told him afterwards that she had searched the entire toy department and it sold out -- and if Macy's didn't have it no one did. Santa told her that the toy was still available at Gimbel's department store -- which in those days was Macy's arch-rival. The mother told his boss what he had done, and as he was fuming and planning to kick the guy out the mother told him that by putting a child's Christmas wish over their own profit she was so impressed that would now be a customer for life. The manager then started a campaign to increase profit by encouraging floor personnel to exhibit the "Christmas spirit."

At one point in the movie somebody was trying to commit him to an insane asylum for refusing to back down from his claim of being the real Santa Claus, but his lawyer got him off by proving in a court of law that he really was Santa Claus. He did this by having the Post Office deliver to him in the court room sacks of mail addressed to Santa Claus, noting that it is a federal felony to knowingly misdirect mail. The judge dismissed the case, saying, "If the Post Office is convinced he's the real Santa Claus, that's good enough for me!"

The little girl was played by Natalie Wood, who later as a teenager started in some classic films with James Dean (e.g. "Rebel Without a Cause") and played sexy roles as an adult (e.g. "Bob and Carol and Ted and Alice" with Eliot Gould and Dyan Canon). She drowned in a tragic drunken boating accident in her early middle age.

[Paul Clapham]

Mike Simmons wrote:I wonder what hydroplane pilots call it though?

I'm not sure what "hydroplane" means, but I have flown in a lot of seaplanes. I don't recall the flight attendants or pilots ever fumbling for a word to replace "landing", so they must call them landings. I would have noticed otherwise.

[Mike Simmons]

Silly me - yes, I meant seaplane. Thanks for the info.

[Henry Wong]

Monu Tripathi wrote:You can abate the casualities by making sure your passengers are good swimmers!

I don't think swimming skills would have helped much here. The temperature was below freezing. I don't think anyone can last more than a few minutes in the water.

The main reason for the success was that the ferries got there really fast -- and plucked people off of the wings and from the doors. A few people may have fell in, but they were pull out almost immedidately. I highly doubt that anyone would have been able to swim to shore.

Henry

[Henry Wong]

FAA tapes have been released...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gEz11gmkhak
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mLFZTzR5u84

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dH--qdT0oug


I am amazed how can anyone say "we're going to be in the hudson" so nonchalantly !!

Henry

[Joe Ess]

Henry Wong wrote:
I am amazed how can anyone say "we're going to be in the hudson" so nonchalantly !!

Well, he was kind of busy at the time and couldn't add a lot of drama. I would have said something like: "with my last breath, I curse Zoidberg!"

[Henry Wong]

I added a few more youtube links... The last one is the most interesting, as it shows LGA using / requesting helicopters as observers. And shows the panic to alert the police.

Henry