Nice job by US Air Captain

[DispatchDragon]

I think the degree of expertise with which the crew operated has already been reported in the media both by passengers and "eyewitness's"
The most telling one was from a witness who said he thought "it was a flying boat landing on the river it was smooth" and by a passenger who
claimed to hold a CPL who said "The captain held the nose up as long as he could" which confirms the High AOA arrival, Other factors
that helped (And NOT as one idiot reporter/talking head on CNN said "Water is harder when its cold") was the fact there was very little chop on
the river and the wind was blowing straight up the Hudson from the Southwest - LGA-CHS is a 70 minute flight and is hub to hub for US Air
so your assumption that it was a light fuel load is spot on. I remember sitting in a class with Airbus instructors talking about ditching in the
North Atlantic, and pilots in the class were moaning about Hypothermia - The instructor stopped, looked at the class and said "Hypothermia?
you will be bloody lucky to survive the impact" Seems Capt. Sullenberger proved Airbus wrong

Leif

[Nigel H-J]

yet already we have the "experts" coming out of the woodwork to explain how they could have done it better - have they no respect?

I would love to hear exactly how they could do it any better!!

It was all in one piece and every-one got out...........ALIVE!!......As Pilot Officer Prune would say...."A good landing is one you can walk away from"!!....Not saying any more as these so called experts are just armchair wallies!! :@

Nigel.

[petermcleland]

Well he certainly did an absolutely wonderful job...I bet US Air are very proud of him. I think it might go down in history as one of the greatest disaster avoiding feats of airmanship

[NigelC]

Just been looking on PPRUNE and for once, everybody is praising an Airbus product. Strength and Integrity to survive the impact, FBW meant he could get high alpha, low speed without risk of stalling etc etc.

How one, albeit major, incident can change perception! :prayer:

[Nigel H-J]

I think it might go down in history as one of the greatest disaster avoiding feats of airmanship

Agree Peter, but also another greatest disaster avoiding feat was the 777 Heathrow incident on landing!!! ;-)

But then again.........one was on land....the other on water.

Ooopps sorry, I said I was not going to say anymore!!

Regards
Nigel.

[Chris Trott]

"Sully" also has the distinction of being the first qualified accident investigator on scene of this accident even though he'll have to recuse himself from actually investigating the accident because of the obvious "conflict of interest".

With 19K+ hours, combat time in Vietnam, and one hell of a resume (including being one of USAir's top Safety guys and having his own business using the Airline Industry "Best Safety Practices" to show other industries how to do their safety programs), you couldn't have asked for a better Captain (except maybe Capt'n Al) to be at the controls.

[airboatr]

Ooopps sorry, I said I was not going to say anymore!!

Regards
Nigel.

No problem Nigel , you just typing...
which is much better than the reporters http://s80.photobucket.com/albums/j195/ ... incoln.flv

[speedbird591]

Having trained regularly over a period of 30 years for just such an event, it was great to see photographic evidence of people standing on a floating wing waiting to be rescued. One of the greatest incentives for promotion in my VC10 days was that, in a ditching, the second steward had to attach a rope to his life vest and walk about two thirds the length of the wing and clip the rope to a retaining ring so that everybody else would have a grab rail. We always imagined having to do it in an Atlantic swell during a storm The 747 Classics also had this system but BA had developed an eminently more sensible system of selecting an able-bodied passenger to do the job! Hands up anyone who has requested an overwing exit seat?

Now nobody seems to have mentioned the engines. The underslung engines on Boeings are designed to shear during a water landing. There are several reasons. The engines should be the first part of the aircraft to impact and if they didn't shear they would dig in and either tear the aircraft apart or flip it in nose first. The other reason is weight. Engines make up a high percentage of the weight of an aircraft and without them the fuselage should stay afloat indefinitely. I would be very surprised to hear that the engines were still attached to that Airbus after the ditching. I don't think it would have stayed intact or afloat if they were.

Ian

[TSR2]

RE the engines I remember hearing somthing when I was in my teens about trialing exploding bolts to allow the flight crew to jetison engines, but not sure what the context was as it was a long time ago.

[DispatchDragon]

Sorry guys
In the shots from the helicopters immeadiatly after the ditching BOTh engines were still attached

The reason they couldnt use the aft doors was they were jammed when the aircraft hit tail first