The New York Airbus Crash - Little-Known Facts
Interesting Details About the A320 Which Ditched in the Hudson River
Feb 2, 2009
The A320 ditching in the Hudson was termed ‘a miracle’, by both the media and aviation experts. But who was the skilled pilot, and who were his brave cabin crew? How was the rescue of the passengers done? And how common are bird strikes, and how dangerous are they to airplanes? Here are the answers to some of these questions.
The Pilots and Cabin Crew
The captain who landed the stricken airliner so successfully was Chesley Sullenberger III, aged 58. He joined US Airways in 1980 and has a total of 19,663 flying hours. The First Officer was Jeffrey B Skoles, aged 49, who joined the airline in 1986 and has 15,643 flying hours.
Flight Attendant Sheila Dail, aged 57, had 28 years experience with the airline. Doreen Welsh was 58, and joined US Airways in 1970, while Donna Dent was 51 and had 26 years experience with the airline.
So overall the flight crew and cabin crew were hugely experienced.
The Rescue of the Passengers
The Airbus A320 has a ditching button that closes all valves and openings underneath the aircraft to slow down the rate of flooding, so giving everyone time to escape. Almost immediately after the ditching, ferries on the river began to rescue passengers from the wings in the freezing 20 degree (Fahrenheit) weather; the water temperature was a mere 41 degrees.
As the plane began to sink, Sullenberger walked the aisle twice to make sure no-one was left behind. Meanwhile, three minutes after the first alert, the police had commandeered a Circle Line boat which had been taking sightseers around the landmarks of New York. Within five minutes a police helicopter was hovering over the rescue scene. Then a detective who was also a trained diver was lowered into the water. He swam to a disorientated female passenger and helped her to a rescue boat.
Most of the passengers behaved in an orderly and sensible manner, but not all. One woman asked a stranger to go back into the sinking plane to fetch her purse!
The last to leave the stricken plane was Sullenberger, clutching a clipboard with a list of passengers. After the crash, according to witnesses, he sat in the ferry terminal, wearing his hat, sipping coffee as though nothing had happened. “His grey hair was unruffled, his pilots’ uniform didn’t have a wrinkle, and he hadn’t even loosened his tie”, said one onlooker.
The bulk of the event was over within ten minutes
Bird Strikes and Aircraft
Airplane collisions with birds more than quadrupled from 1990 to 2007. 85% were to commercial aircraft. However, most of the time they cause little or no damage. In around 70% of cases there was no damage at all, and only minor damage in 6% of incidents. There was substantial damage in 3% of cases, but in only 0.0003% was the aircraft destroyed. So this is a very rare event, and not something that passengers generally need to worry about.
By landing successfully on water the pilot achieved one of the most technically challenging feats in commercial aviation. Experts could not recall another successful controlled ditching like this in the USA. It is likely to go down in aviation history as the most successful ditching ever.
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