Topic: Did anyone watch the news tonight?

[Cobra951]

Quick quiz.  Why is this page a zillion times of more interest now than it was this morning?

[Quemaqua]

I'm guessing because that was the dude flying the plane that went down?

[Cobra951]

Yeah.  I guess I found the story a lot more interesting than most, with the perfect water landing, ferries floating down the Hudson with an airbus, and all that.  Oh well.  Resume whatever you halted to read this.

[Quemaqua]

I actually haven't really heard anything about it.  I don't generally watch or read the news unless someone brings something major to my attention, so stuff like this routinely goes unnoticed.

[Cobra951]

There's a shot of the actual landing, something I have yet to see on any official news source.

What's amazing about this event, over and above just being an airliner crash landing into a river (itself just a bit extraordinary) is that everything went right after everything went wrong.  The pilot has 40 years experience flying, starting with 7 in the Air Force flying F4s.  He also knows all about gliders.  The Hudson is calm, and the landing was absolutely perfect.  As a result, the plane remained intact except for the left engine dropping off.  When it came to a stop, it was in the midst of ferry traffic, which converged on the plane within minutes.  Everyone waked out onto the emergency chutes now serving as rafts, and the wings.  They used them as queue lines to get into the ferries.  The coast guard and NYPD joined up in a hurry.  The fire dept was flooded with 911 calls, and they converged en masse on both shores.

No one died.  No one even had life threatening injuries.  There was no panic.  There were no dummies driving any of the boats. One leg fracture.  Everyone else basically went on to their final destination.  Unreal.

[Ghandi]

It's a remarkable story - a relief from the terrible news that has been coming in lately. What's most amazing is that not only did the pilot land the plane without seriously hurting anyone, but managed to keep it afloat. He had to keep the cockpit and fuselage above water so that the plane didn't sink. And if he went in too steep the wings would break off and the plane would sink.

And then there was the great rescue by everyone. You couldn't crash land in a more ideal water location.

[Cobra951]

Yes, it definitely was a relief from everything else happening all around us.  It turns out both engines came off, which is probably one of the many things that worked out so well.  The engines on the A320 extend below the fuselage.  Had they stubbornly held on, I imagine they could have dragged down the nose of the plane, which then would have cartwheeled.  I wonder if it's a design feature, like race cars that come apart but leave the driver enclosure unharmed.

[ScaryTooth]

Sweet story. Have to give that dude props. He's got skillz to pay the billz.

[Quemaqua]

Yes, the engines are supposed to detach to get away from the wings and fuel.  It's by design.

[Cobra951]

That makes sense, but as it turns out, the NTSB was wrong.  The right engine stayed attached as was reported originally.  I guess they couldn't see it.

Coast Guard footage of the end of the splashdown through 3 boats converging on the plane.  10 minutes of slideshow video, with the first 2 completely dead.  Action starts at 2:03.  Watch as someone walks off the end of the wing at around 3:32:12 time stamp on the video.  After seeing pictures of the raised wing on the moored plane, I think what he did was step where the flap was down in a landing configuration.  Someone then helps him back up.

Landing captured on surveillance cameras.  Video lifted from CNN which always shows 4:3 video on their webpage, and it's always stretched to 16:9.  Idiots.  I downloaded this so I could correct it with VLC.  It doesn't look nearly as fast of a hit at the correct aspect.