A320 flight 1549 in Hudson River

On the 15th of January, an Airbus 320 by US Airways (Flight 1549) made an emergency crash landing/water ditching into the Hudson River, New York City. All passengers on board, 150 people with 5 crew members survived the crash without any major injury. It was indeed a heroic and swift action from the Captain of Flight 1547, Captain Chesley Sullenberger to escape the highly populated area and skyscrapers in the NY City before deciding to make a water ditch into Hudson River.

Flight 1549 took from Runway 4 at La Guardia Airport at 3:26 p.m. Flight 1549 is a domestic route, flying first to Charlotte/Douglas, North Carolina. The red arrow indicates the site where the A320 made water ditching into Hudson River. The whole sequence of events only took about 6 minutes from the aircraft taking off at La Guardia Airport before safely landed into Hudson River.

The cause of event is still not confirmed yet till now. The NTSB and authority concerned have been conducting thorough investigations into this case. The pilots complaint both engines failure after suspecting "hitting birds" while climbing through altitude of 3200 feets, about 90 seconds after take-off.

The above first video was a news broadcast, reporting for the Flight 1549 incident by the local television channel. The second video was a video recorded by a eye witness on the emergency crash of Flight 1549 beside the Hudson River. Surprsingly, he was too shocked to make an 911 call. Enjoy! Not too often we get to see such a dramatic event, most of time, it could only happen in movie! Lolz :)

No conclusion is to be made until the analysis from the Cockpit Voice Recorder (CVR) and Flight Data Recorder (FDR) which were both retrived from the submerged aircrfat is carried out by the NTSB. However, in reality, the possibility of BOTH engine failure due to bird strikes is very slim, almost to the extent of impossible! We shall wait patiently for the outcome of NTSB's investigation.

Cheers,
KeithK :)