US Airways commuter jet crashes into the Hudson River

[Ptarmigan]

Truly a miracle.

[Peter3_1]

No doubt about it, excelent flying skills. After all, he was an old F-4 PILOT.

[jinxmchue]

No doubt about it, excelent flying skills. After all, he was an old F-4 PILOT.

With 19,000 hours of flying experience!

[Peter3_1]

They did not call the F-4 "The Flying Brick" for nothing! Plus, they had, in the day, the regretable problem of "flame out" now and again for no discernable reason. They'd usually re3start, but in the meantime, you got "dead stick" experience with an aircraft with all the glide characteristics of a brick.

Where do youthink the Pilot got all that gray hair?

[Thor]

Sullenberger just so happens to have been from my current home town of Denison, Tx. until he joined the Air Force.

[jinxmchue]

This is worth reading:

http://www.time.com/time/nation/article/0,8599,1872247,00.html

Since 2007, he has run a safety consulting firm, Safety Reliability Methods, Inc., in addition to flying commercial aircraft

• Has been a US Airways pilot since 1980

• Served nearly seven years as an Air Force fighter pilot, attaining the rank of captain

• Served as a flight instructor, Air Line Pilots Association safety chairman, accident investigator and national technical committee member

• Has investigated aviation accidents for the Air Force and National Transportation Safety Board; helped developed new protocols for airline safety

• Recipient of a 1973 bachelor's degree from the Air Force Academy, where he majored in psychology and basic sciences and accrued an array of academic awards

• Has two master's degrees, one in industrial psychology from Purdue University (1973) and one in public administration from the University of Northern Colorado (1979)

• Recently named a visiting scholar at the University of California at Berkeley's Center for Catastrophic Risk Management

Quotes by Sullenberger:

• "Brace for impact."
— Sullenberger's announcement to those onboard the flight, as recounted by multiple passengers on the plane, The New York Times et al., Jan. 16, 2009

Quotes about Sullenberger:

• "He is the consummate pilot. He is about performing that airplane to the exact precision to which it is made."
—Lorrie Sullenberger, the pilot's wife, The New York Post, Jan. 16, 2009

• "[He] did a masterful job of landing the plane in the river and then making sure that everybody got out. He walked the plane twice after everybody else was off, and tried to verify that there was nobody else on board, and he...made sure that there was nobody behind him."
— New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg, lauding Sullenberger's performance at a post-crash press conference, Jan. 15, 2009

• "I just can't believe how well he did. We're all alive because of him.""
— Beth McHugh, 64, a passenger on US Airways Flight 1549, MSNBC.com, Jan. 16, 2009

• "If anyone could do it, it would be him."
— Frank Salzmann, a Danville, Calif. neighbor, The New York Times, Jan. 16, 2009

Right man.  Right place.  Right time.

[jinxmchue]

Great stories of the heroism of the passengers, too:

http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5ipKRkY9XnWmqqvBNAlBju1taRJCQD95OBTM80

The parents of a 3-year-old girl and a 9-month-old boy recounted Friday how they and a fellow passenger prepared themselves for the crash landing and escaped from the fast-submerging plane.

"I held Sophia and we did the best we could to brace ourselves up," Martin Sosa, the father, told NBC's "Today."

"And the gentleman beside me said, "Would you like me to brace your son?" said his wife, Tess Sosa. "And I said okay, because he mentioned that he had been on scary flights before."

"And he did, he braced my son. There was an impact. My son was crying. That was such a good sign to me."

And of the rescuers:

Dozens stood on the aircraft's wings on a 20-degree day, one of the coldest of the winter, as commuter ferries and Coast Guard vessels converged to rescue them.

One ferry, the Thomas Jefferson of the company NY Waterway, arrived within minutes. Riders grabbed life vests and rope and tossed them to plane passengers in the water.

"They were cheering when we pulled up," Capt. Vincent Lombardi. "People were panicking. They said, `Hurry up! Hurry up!'"

[Rebel]

Damn, that's a feat getting a Bachelors in Colorado and a Masters in Indiana in the same year. 


 

[Thor]

See Link for story:

http://www.heralddemocrat.com/hd/News/A1-PIC-Denison-native-pilot-called-a-hero-on-the-Hudson

Damn, that's a feat getting a Bachelors in Colorado and a Masters in Indiana in the same year.  


 

Kev, I'd bet that some reporter has their time line off....

[Rebel]

I wasn't questioning him, Rob, just making a funny. 

No doubt someone probably got it wrong.

[Thor]

I wasn't questioning him, Rob, just making a funny. 

No doubt someone probably got it wrong.

Actually, upon some further web investigation, it appears that he DID get both in the same year. He must be a genius or something to be able to do all that.