USAir jet into Hudson River…amazing!

What an incredible situation, and so glad that no lives were lost in what certainly could have been a tragic scene. This picture was taken by Janis Krums and posted via Twitter.  Krums was on one of the ferries that responded to the scene to assist. I know this is a big picture, but it’s worth way more than 1000 words.

Those passengers were very fortunate for several reasons:

• They were flying on plane commanded by an extremely talented and expert pilot (and first officer).
• The flight attendants appear to  have done an exceptional job preparing the passengers and then evacuating the aircraft.  Their training really paid off in this incident.  When you fly, the flight attendants always tell you “they are here for your safety”, well…they mean it.
• The NY Waterway ferries that run back and forth across the Hudson River were very quick to respond to the scene.  According to witness reports, many passengers just stepped off the wing right onto the ferry boat.
• Lastly, major kudos have to go to the Airbus airframe and flight control engineers for designing a plane so robustly that it can remain completely intact in a hard water ditching as occurred here.  I read over on the Airliners.net forum that the flight control system actually has a program that the pilot can engage, that allows for control of the aircraft without any power.  There is a myth that jet aircraft cannot really survive a ‘water landing’, but it has happened in the past and this is another example of the extreme engineering that goes into these planes.

Simply an amazing story, and again, I’m very happy that everyone was OK!