NEW YORK (AP) - A US Airways pilot ditched his disabled jetliner into the frigid Hudson River on Thursday afternoon after a collision with a flock of birds apparently knocked out both engines, but officials said rescuers pulled all 155 people on board into boats as the plane sank.
There were no immediate reports of any serious injuries.
Mayor Michael Bloomberg, an experienced pilot, said it appeared the pilot did "a masterful job of landing the plane in the river and then making sure everybody got out." And Gov. David Patterson pronounced it "a miracle on the Hudson."
Flight 1549 went down minutes after takeoff from LaGuardia Airport for Charlotte, N.C., splashing into the river near 48th Street in midtown Manhattan.
"There were eyewitness reports the plane may have flown into a flock of birds," said Federal Aviation Administration spokeswoman Laura Brown. "Right now we don't have any indication this was anything other than an accident."
Passenger Jeff Kolodjay of Norwalk, Conn., said he heard an explosion two or three minutes into the flight, looked out the left side of the Airbus A320 and saw one of the engines on fire.
"The captain said, `Brace for impact because we're going down,'" Kolodjay said. He said passengers put their heads in their laps and started praying. He said the plane hit the water pretty hard, but he was fine.
"It was intense. It was intense. You've got to give it to the pilot. He made a hell of a landing," Kolodjay said.
The plane was submerged in the icy waters up to the windows when rescuers in police and Coast Guard vessels and ferry boats arrived, opened the door and pulled passengers in yellow life vests from the aircraft, whose fuselage appeared intact. The plane was sinking in the near-freezing water on one of the coldest days of the year, with the mercury around 20 degrees.
Police divers rescued a few people from the water, Bloomberg said. Other passengers were able to walk out onto the wings, then onto rescue boats.
Paramedics treated at least 78 patients, fire officials said. The Coast Guard said it rescued 35 people who were immersed in the cold water and ferried them to shore. Most were sent to hospitals. No information was released on their condition.
Witnesses said the pilot appeared to guide the plane down.
"I see a commercial airliner coming down, looking like it's landing right in the water," said Bob Read, who saw it from his office at the television newsmagazine "Inside Edition." "This looked like a controlled descent."
Barbara Sambriski, a researcher at The Associated Press, saw the plane go down from the news organization's high-rise office. "I just thought, 'Why is it so low?' And, splash, it hit the water," she said.
The pilot reported a "double bird strike" less than a minute after taking off, said Doug Church, a spokesman for the National Air Traffic Controllers Union. The controller sent the aircraft back toward LaGuardia, but the pilot saw an airport below him and asked what it was, Church said. It was Teterboro Airport in New Jersey, and the pilot asked to land there, Church said.
The instruction to land at Teterboro was the last communication with the plane before it went into the river, Church said.
US Airways said 150 passengers, three flight attendants and two pilots were on board the jetliner.
"This is really a potential tragedy that may have become one of the most spectacular days in the history of New York City's agencies, its coordination and the greatness of the people that work here and all they did for those passengers who are now tonight going to go home to their families," the governor said.
Joe Mazzone, a retired Delta Air Lines pilot, said it is not unusual for birds to strike planes. In fact, he said, when planes get ready to take off, if there are birds in the area, the tower will alert the crew.
In the rare cases in which birds get sucked into an engine, "they literally just choke out the engine and it quits," Mazzone said.
Twenty-seven years ago this week, an Air Florida plane bound for Tampa crashed into the Potomac River after hitting a bridge just after takeoff from Washington National Airport. The crash on Jan. 13, 1982, killed 78 people including four people in their cars on the bridge. Five people on the plane survived.
On Dec. 20, a Continental Airlines plane veered off a runway and slid into a snowy field at the Denver airport, injuring 38 people. That was the first major crash of a commercial airliner in the United States since Aug. 27, 2006, when 49 people were killed after a Comair jetliner mistakenly took off from the wrong runway in Lexington, Ky.
This was crazy! It's miraculous that not one person died, really unbelievable. When I saw it on the news as it was happening I just thought about how sad is was gonna be with all the death count there was gonna be. I'm shocked! That pilot is a hero.
i make airplane parts..i've seen what birds do to the body of a plane, but knew they tested the engines by tossing in frozen turkeys/chickens/whatever
I've seen that piece on Discovery or wherever and thought the same thing about what happened today. My guess is that they sucked-up a lot of geese at once, and it caused the engine to flame-out. The only good thing about this is there are now a few less annoying geese around!
Excellent job by the pilot putting that baby down where he did, it was either in the river by the piers or on the west side highway in rush hr...think he made a good choice....
I wonder if the pilot will get fined by the EPA if they do find out that the birds struck were "Canada Geese" (you don't change the Canada to Canadian when describing them - their true name is Canada Geese) which are protected by law (http://www.american.edu/TED/geese.htm)
the thing thats scary to me..the engines are made to take a bird in stride and keep on truckin'
Unfortunately, as well built as airline engines are (I spent my freshman and sophomore years of college earning my private and instrument ratings) today when you hit a flock, there's nothing that the engine can do...
Back in 1995, an E-3 AWACS flying out of Anchorage on a training flight with 24 on board hit a flock of Canadian geese (12 found dead right at the end of the runway) just after takeoff... Pilots lost all power to the port wing (estimated 5-6 birds sucked into both port engines), plane never got higher than 300', and went down killing all on board...
Kinda disturbing that people are predicting more issues with birds since planes are so much quieter now (from the front anyways) and our protection programs are increasing the sizes of flocks.
All countries
Argentina
Austria
Belgium
Brazil
Bulgaria
Chile
China
Colombia
Cyprus
Czech Republic
Estonia
Denmark
Finland
Greece
Hong Kong
Hungary
Iceland
Indonesia
Ireland
Israel
India
Latvia
Lithuania
Malaysia
New Zealand
Norway
Philippines
Poland
Portugal
Romania
Russia
Singapore
South Africa
South Korea
Sweden
Switzerland
Taiwan
Thailand
Turkey
Ukraine
United Arab Emirates
All 155 safe after pilot ditches jet in NYC river
Linear Mode
