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All the passengers are out Pictures on BBC news site.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/americas/7832191.stm
Airbus 320 of US Airways with 150 passengers.
Pilot reported double bird strike less than a minute after takeoff from Laguardia, They went into a flock of Geese.
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The pilot is reported to have down a masterful job of pulling off a water landing when unable to reach an airport. Kudos to him!
Cum catapultae proscriptae erunt tum soli proscript catapultas habebunt.
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Did the pilot decide he could not get back to
the airport and chose the next best option?
If so he was suitably rewarded! I can get my
head down with one good story today.
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Million to one landing, sir pilot preserved a nice running US record of 2 years without an airline fatality.
Pres. Medal of Freedom, now. Like, yesterday now...
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I'm happy to hear that everybody got out okay.
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Not directly related, but there is an article on Google news with the headline "Birds Hit Planes Every Day, but Don't Usually Cause Crashes". It seems a bit unfair to me. Isn't it the planes hitting the birds? Well, of course it's a mutual thing, but when a car and pedestrian collide, we usually say the car hit the person, probably because (a) the car is going faster and (b) the damage to the pedestrian is worse. With planes, it's clear that the plane is going faster and the damage is usually much, much worse for the bird.
As above, so below
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Oh I am so glad!
And not just for the passengers.
A very good friend of mine is a former Navy deep diver and he was part of the recovering team for Air Florida Flight 90 which ended up in the Potomac back in 1982.
There were close to 100 people in that plane who mostly drowned in their seats. Think about swimming through the passenger cable of an airliner with all the people still seatbelted in place. Visibility is less than two feet with lights. And even though the passengers are all secured in the their seats, their arms weren't and floated over their heads.
For years, at night before dropping off to sleep, he could feel their hands brushing against him. Had to get professional help finally.
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I can't imagine that Big D ... of course, I don't really want to imagine it.
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Seconded.Originally Posted by Doodler
When I first heard about the crash, the first thought I had was the Air Florida Flight in 82. To find out that there were no fatalities is truly amazing.
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I thought it was strange that they would have had their seatbelts still on if they had drowned. In any case, whether mercifully or not, they didn't drown, but were killed by the impact.
As above, so below
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Lets hope it was just birdstrikes and not something more omninous. I suppose they'll know more in a day or two as soon as they look at the wreckage and review any security camera footage that saw the plane.
Et tu BAUT? Quantum mutatus ab illo.
Established Member
Apparently the first responders were really organized and arrived quickly, thank goodness.
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I read that one of the actions pilots take prior to a water landing/crash is to hit the 'ditch' control, which seals the aircraft's openings and helps it remain afloat longer. Is this a new feature on airliners?
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Phew...i just saw...thank goodness the people are okay.
BD your comment is touching. (hey no jokes, puns intended. (Jens!))
Thanks for sharing BD
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Good day, Mr Sullenberger!
Thank you and your crew!
...and the fine rescue crew, too!
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Probably not new, but just seldom heard of. Really, how often have we ever seen a reasonably controlled landing in a body of water? Probably the first time its ever been used to its intended purpose.
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Apparently the first responders were really organized and arrived quickly, thank goodness.
Actually, the tug and ferry boat crews "swarmed" the plane within a couple minutes of impact. They self-organized and did a masterful job of rescueing everyone. As the InstaPundit pointed out yesterday, they did the same thing on a much larger scale in the aftermath of 9/11.
This appears to be a case where everyone did their jobs masterfully. The cockpit crew ditched the plane carefully enough that it didn't break up. It floated giving everyone time to get out. The cabin crew (flight attendants) did their job of getting everyone out of the plane quickly. And the boat crews were quick to get the people out of very cold water.
As far as "ditch controls" go, I've never heard of them and I'm not certain they exist. A pressurized airplane is pretty water-tight to begin with and ditching is so rare that airline pilots aren't even trained on the maneuver any more.
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Question about how to land on water:
I've heard 2 things:
-(in articles on this crash) make sure the wings don't hit the water hard, because then it can start to roll over in the water. So basically, land as if you were on concrete, but without your gear out
-(in the past) let one wing tip clip the water first, to loose energy
Which one is it?
Second thing: after landing in the water, is it best to get the emergency exits open as fast as possible, or only those above the wing, or...?
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This is where I read about the ditching button:
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/01/16/ny...l?ref=nyregion
"Ditching can be tricky. The first step is to extend the slats and the flaps, the movable surfaces on the front and back edges of the wings that allow the plane to fly more slowly and to descend to just over the water’s surface.
Another step is to hit the “ditching button,” which seals the openings in the plane. One is the intake, where the engines grab air to pressurize and force it into the cabin, essential to high-altitude flight. Another is the valve at the back that lets air out.
When the plane is flying low enough, it will generate its own cushion of air, a phenomenon called “ground effect,” that lets it fly even more slowly.
“The whole point is to get the airplane slow, to minimize the damage and the forces on the airplane,” said John Cox, a safety consultant who flew the A320 for US Airways and USAir for six years. Mr. Cox said that he knew Captain Sullenberger and that he was “a seriously good aviator.”
While the plane slows, the crew has to be careful not to let it stall, which happens when the wind is flowing over the wings too slowly to generate enough lift. Mr. Cox said the plane would probably have touched down at 100 to 120 knots, roughly 115 to 140 miles per hour.
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You want to hit the water with as low a rate of descent as possible and with the wings level. After that, I think the best thing is to try to keep the plane going straight if you can but know that you'll have little or no control. The engines on an A-320 are big water brakes and will stop the plane very quickly.
I listed to one of the passengers being interviewed this morning. He was near the rear of the plane and said the rear exits were submerged very quickly so they didn't open them. It sounded like someone tried to open them but the pressure was too great. It's good they didn't open them because that would've flooded the plane much faster. Since the plane was floating in the water tail heavy, they opened the over-wing and front exits to get everyone out. He said people in the back of the plane had headed to the rear exits only to have to turn around. Water was coming in and people started climbing over seats when the line wasn't moving. Apparently, it took a few minutes to get everyone out.
According to his account, the pilot walked the length of the plane making sure everyone was out before leaving himself. That's not only his job but a testiment to his character. Airline pilots are responsible for the safety of everyone on board and they take that responsibility very seriously.
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Having seen what is left of dead animals after few days on the seabottom, I can imagine it... I just do not want to!
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Here's info on the pilot, Captain Chesley B. "Sully" Sullenberger, III. He's a graudate of the Air Force Academy and flew F-4 Phantoms for 6 years (a plane that was challenging to fly and said to be proof that with enough power, you can get a brick to fly). Interestingly enough, he's also a rated glider pilot and flight instructor for powered planes and gliders (see page 2 of the link). That glider experience came in handy yesterday.
Interestingly enough, the pilot in the famous "Gimli Glider" 767 incident back in the 1980s was also a glider pilot.
I'm considering getting my glider rating this year to become a better pilot. You have to be very coordinated and smooth to fly gliders well.
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Good on you Mr Jacks! You can do it!
one of my two regrets in life. the other one i think i can deal with. so i hope.
Administrator
I saw an interview with one of the ferry captains this morning and read about it in the paper. Apparently the ferry boat companies scrambled every boat they had available and about a dozen were on the scene within minutes. The captain I saw interviewed had her crew ready with life preservers and other rescue equipment standing by on deck by the time she reached the scene.
I read in the paper that he walked it twice (while it was filling with water), to make sure.According to his account, the pilot walked the length of the plane making sure everyone was out before leaving himself.
In addition to saving all his passengers and crew, the captain probably saved a lot of people on the ground. The New York metropolitan area doesn't have a lot of open space; anything but a water landing would have probably killed a lot of people on the ground (given that you couldn't return to an airport).
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Like others, I'd never heard of a "ditching switch" before, and I work in the industry. One story I read says it's unique to Airbus, which would explain that.
Cum catapultae proscriptae erunt tum soli proscript catapultas habebunt.
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That seemed to be what was implied in an interview I heard yesterday. It was something airbus had, the implication being that Boeing and others did not.
Et tu BAUT? Quantum mutatus ab illo.
Banned
It does indeed exist, and the Airbus is one of the few aircraft that has such a feature. Furthermore, it makes sense, particularly for planes on takeoff, when they're the most heavily laden with fuel.
Technically, pressing the ditching button (located on the overhead panel) closes the outflow valve, the emergency ram air inlet, avionics ventilation inlet and extract valves and the pack control flow valves.
However, the article makes an error. While fuel is lighter than water, air (empty tanks) is much lighter than water, while the metal in an airplane is certainly heavier, thus, without a "float line" as described in the article, a plane with full tanks will sink rapidly if the ports are left open. On the other hand, if there are any leaks in the tanks, water would displace air much more rapidly than it would displace fuel.
Bottom line, it's a sensible system.
I'd like to counter a couple of comments here...
It was a bird strike, nothing more. They're common, although ones that take out an engine or two are much more rare. I've had my fair share, including ones which punched through the leading edge of the left wing to the forward spar, and another which impacted just below the pilot's left window and sprayed blood and feathers into the cockpit. Yuck! Sprayed some pretty smelly guts, too. Fortunately, the bird impacted on a structural member and so didn't take out the pilot's crotch...
Some have ascribed superhuman skill to this pilot. As pilots go, he was very good, very professional. But most A320 pilots would have done a similarly great job, as ditching is a practiced event during simulator training, and the checklist for it is fairly easy, particularly as the computers will not allow the plane to stall. Thus, it mainly involves trimming for minimum descent rate airspeed, which is the same as best rate of climb airspeed, sending a mayday, and informing the pax/crew, deploying the ram-air turbine (RAT) to provide hydraulics for maneuvering, clearing obstacles, and lining up, preferrably upwind, parallel to any ways, on the smoothest patch of water you can find.
About fifteen seconds, tops, and most of those are performed at the same time (took me four times longer to type it!).
I've never had to ditch, unless you count the time I took a hop with a friend of mine in his Cessna 185.
Good for you! Go for it!
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Wow this is indeed a great success story. What an amazing job the Captain did.
I hate flying and imagine this happening each time i board, i shouldn't i know, but still can't help it.
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I hate flying and imagine this happening each time i board, i shouldn't i know, but still can't help it.
You can take some comfort in knowing your crew is trained just as well as the one we're talking about. While everyone is praising the pilot, let's not forget the other crew members who did their jobs so well. They were all instrumental to getting everyone out alive. Those flight attendants are there to do more than serve coffee and soda - they're well trained to help in emergencies like yesterday and do it well.
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