HEROISM WITH MALAYSIAKINI: being miraculous over New York

Crash cause unclear,
but not pilot's heroism

International Herald Tribune

The plane, an Airbus 320, was towed down the Hudson to a docking site.(Michael Appleton/The New York Times)

What might have been a catastrophe in New York was averted by a pilot's quick thinking and deft maneuvers, and by the nearness of rescue boats, a combination that witnesses and officials called miraculous.

A US Airways jetliner with 155 people aboard lost power in both engines, possibly from striking birds, after taking off from La Guardia Airport on Thursday. The pilot ditched in the icy Hudson River and all on board were rescued by a flotilla of converging ferries and emergency boats, the authorities said.

As stunned witnesses watched from high-rise buildings on both banks, the Airbus A320, which had risen to 3,200 feet, or 975 meters, over the Bronx and banked left, came downriver, its fuselage lower than many apartment terraces and windows, in a carefully executed touchdown that sent up huge plumes of water at midstream.

On Friday, a member of the National Transportation Safety Board investigating the accident, Kathryn Higgins, said the left engine was missing from the plane. Higgins said it was not clear if the right engine was still on the wing either, because it is submerged. Engines mounted under the wings, as on the A320, commonly detach in crashes.

Investigators want the engine to look for signs of damage from birds, which could have been the cause of the accident. They will also examine the airframe itself for signs of bird strikes.

The pilot, Chesley Sullenberger 3rd, unable to get back to La Guardia, had made a decision to avoid densely populated areas and try for the Hudson and had warned the 150 passengers to brace for a hard landing. Most had their heads down as the jetliner slammed into the water, nose slightly up, just three minutes after takeoff on what was to be a flight to Charlotte, North Carolina.

Moments later, terrified passengers began swarming out the emergency exits into brutally cold air and onto the submerged wings of the bobbing jetliner, which began taking in water. When all were out, the pilot walked up and down the aisle twice to make sure the plane was empty, officials said.

Brought ashore on both sides of the river, the survivors were taken to hospitals, mostly for treatment for exposure to the brutal cold: 18 degrees Fahrenheit, or minus 7.8 degrees Celsius, in the air, and about 35 degrees in the water that many had stood in on the wings up to their waists.

Sullenberger, widely praised for his heroism, was unavailable to answer questions until he had spoken to the transportation safety board. That interview was planned later Friday.

"If it wasn't for him, I wouldn't be here today," Mary Berkwits, of Stallings, North Carolina, a passenger who spoke of Sullenberger. She prepared to return to Charlotte on Friday morning at La Guardia Airport. "He was just wonderful."

The lead officials in the rescue spoke about the coordinated efforts and the subsequent towing of the plane, starting with a dramatic interlocking operation amid a swift current and freezing temperatures that enabled every passenger and crew member to reach the shore safely.

"I was worried if we didn't get them out right away," said a New York Waterway ferry captain Vincent Lombardi, first on the scene, "there would have been casualties."

The Emergency Medical Services chief, John Peruggia, agreed: "If we weren't there in another few minutes and got them on board and got them warm, they could have died."

A picture emerged late Thursday and Friday morning of just how perilous the rescue operations and the actual towing of the aircraft was, as boat operators battled a swift tide and the frigid temperatures while a captivated city watched continuous television reports and the Hudson turned from gold to silver in the gathering winter twilight.

Richard Johnson, 52, of the New York Fire Department, was on another one of the first boats to reach the plane, a 27-foot rescue boat.

"We came right alongside the wing, and the pilot did a great job of holding position," Johnson said. "They kind of jumped toward the boat and we pulled them off, one at a time. Their legs would be hanging over the side and then we had to heave them over the side of the boat, and we had to do that with each individual person."

He added: "It is very surprising they were able to hold that composure and stand on that wing, for 10 minutes or so. I am extremely surprised that no one slipped off that wing."

The aircraft was towed down the Hudson and tied up at Battery Park City, near the lower tip of the New York borough of Manhattan. In the glare of floodlights, the top of its fuselage, part of a wing and the blue-and-red tail fin jutted out of the water, but its US Airways logo and many of its windows were submerged.

source:

[Crash cause unclear, but not pilot's heroism]

STATEMENTS WITH MALAYSIAKINI: US Airways Crash

US airways crash
Statements from passengers
witnesses and rescuers
Wall Street Journal



[he following are accounts from witnesses and survivors of the US Airways crash in New York's Hudson River.]

Trouble Began Shortly After Takeoff

A crash survivor, Jeff Kolodjay, who was seated in seat 22A of the plane, said the trouble began three or four minutes after takeoff from LaGuardia airport. The plane first encountered a lot of turbulence, he said. Then he saw smoke and flames rising over the wing. The plane circled around to head back in the direction of the airport, he said. Everyone on board was hoping it could make it back to the airport. When it became clear that it wouldn't, "everyone started saying prayers and kinda looking at each other," Mr. Kolodjay said. But the pilot managed to maneuver the plane well. "I never wanted to die. The pilot did a good job of putting the plane on the water. It didn't feel too good, but it wasn't as bad as I thought it would be." As he described the ordeal to a reporter, Mr. Kolodjay was shivering in the cold on the Western waterfront of Manhattan around 40th Street, trying to call someone on his cellphone. Manhattan's borough president, Scott Stringer, who was at the scene, said of the rescue efforts: "There's a lot of heroes."

Not That Bad

One survivor, who gave his name as Julian Williams, called out to spectators at the Weehawken terminal in New Jersey, "It wasn't that bad."

Woman Falls

According to two police department divers, one woman waiting to be rescued fell off as she was getting on a Coast Guard craft. An elderly woman struggled to get pulled on to a ferry, pleading with one of the divers, "please don't let me go." She was wearing a life vest.

Passengers Brought to Weehawken Restaurant

John Keyser, the sous chef at Arthur's Landing in Weehawken, N.J., a steak-and-seafood restaurant which faces the Hudson River, witnessed the crash as he was looking outside the restaurant's wall of windows. "It was very surreal. After 9/11 you think the worst," he says.

Mr. Keyser and the rest of the staff watched as the plane, just after impact, started to drift downstream with the current. But four ferries were in the midst of their commuter route and they immediately turned and headed to the plane in an effort to hold it in place.

Mr. Keyser says he saw about 30 people on one of the wings who then climbed onto the ferries.

Within 20 minutes a ferry had docked next to the restaurant and 19 survivors began to stream in, says Michael Haimowitz, executive chef at the restaurant, which was just about to open for dinner. He was told that the restaurant was the first place survivors were brought.

The restaurant staff immediately made space in the dining room for the wet passengers and brought out white coats that chefs wear along with checkered pants, even chef's hats--anything that might provide warmth. Wilson Espinoza, the assistant general manager literally gave the shirt off his back and spent the rest of the evening wearing just an undershirt and his coat.

Yet, when asked if he wanted to change his shirt, one male survivor said: "No. I'm not ever taking this shirt off. It's my lucky shirt," recalls Mr. Haimowitz.

One male passenger requested a Scotch and was promptly served. Other survivors received hot coffee as well as steak-and-pastrami sandwiches, because at least one passenger needed food due to low blood sugar.

The restaurant swelled to about 300 people as police officers and emergency personnel arrived--some of whom stayed on for drinks after the survivors left about two hours after the crash.

Panic in the Freezing Water

Ferry operator New York Waterway sent 14 boats to help with the rescue. As part of their training, they practice performing rescues once every couple of weeks. They lower ladders into the water people can climb up out of the water or step into a cradle and the crew will pull them up. Those techniques were used after Thursday's accident.

Vince Lombardi, for six years the captain of the New York Waterway craft, the Thomas Jefferson, said his boat got there in roughly three minutes. His boat was just leaving the New York side of the Hudson when the plane crashed. He pulled out 56 people, including two babies, some who were floating in the airplane's inflatable raft, some perched on the plane's wing and some who had fallen in the water. "It was scary, it was hectic," he said.

NY waterway employees who were at the press conference described people panicking in the water. They said it was very cold, shaking and screaming, as they pleaded for help.

One boat captain said he saw the plane go down slowly, heard a splash and the plane stopped right in the water. The plane was smoking when it went down.

Lieutenant Thomas Mirante, a New York City firefighter, was among the rescuers who responded to the crash. He says he helped about 20 of the plane's passengers get off a life raft at the West Side Midtown Ferry Terminal, which is located at the 40th Street pier in Manhattan. Lieutenant Mirante said the passengers were very cold but in pretty good spirits. "They were happy to be alive. They weren't in too much shock because they were happy to be alive," he said. Lieutenant Mirante said the passengers told him they heard a loud boom shortly after takeoff. They told him the pilot had managed to crash-land the plane on the water well, he said. After the plane came to a stop on the water, the life rafts deployed and the passengers got into them. He said they were soaked from the waist down when he helped them out of their life raft.

'Nervously Low'

Patrick Wilder, a 35-year-old social worker, saw the crash unfold from his bike. Earlier in the afternoon, Mr. Wilder had flown back to LaGuardia airport from Detroit. After getting home and washing up, he decided to go for a bike ride on the bike path that traces its way along the West side of Manhattan. He was at 125th Street when he saw a big commercial jetliner that he knew from his own flight back to New York earlier in the day was not on a normal flight path. The plane was going south roughly along the Hudson River. It passed over the George Washington Bridge. After that, its altitude seemed lower than the bluffs on the New Jersey side. "It looked like when you see a plane coming in for an approach," Mr. Wilder recalled. "At one point, it seemed like it was able to pull up, but that was just briefly." He added: "It was nervously low." Though above the water, "it looked like it was landing," he said. Then he lost the plane in the sun.

Reminder of 9/11

Michael Fricklas, general counsel of media company Viacom Inc., witnessed the crash from his 52nd floor office, which overlooks the river. He also witnessed the second plane flying down the Hudson River in a similar manner before crashing into the World Trade Center on 9/11.

"The plane was moving very slowly and low, traveling south along the Hudson River. It looked like it was gliding at that point. It was flying very evenly and looked like it was coming in for landing. When it hit the river, there was a spray of water and it quickly pivoted sideways. The current was strong. It took less than five minutes for the ferry boats to get out there. Perhaps 10-15 minutes for the emergency vehicles and helicopters."

Mr. Fricklas said he saw no fire or smoke coming out of the plane before it hit the water.

Hypothermia Treated

Gabe Wilson, assistant medical director at St. Luke-Roosevelt in midtown Manhattan, said the hospital was treating 10 patients, 6 females and 4 males ranging in age from "early 20s to late 80s". He said they were all in good condition and the worst they were being treated for was hypothermia. He said he didn't expect any more patients tonight. "Twenty or 30 people being treated for hypothermia could easily overwhelm our resources, so it was a relief we didn't see that many," he said.

Helen Rodriguez, an emergency medical worker for six years, brought in a 23-year-old male. She said the man had been asleep on the plane but awoke to yelling and an apparent fire then the plane hit the water. He stripped naked because his clothes were weighing him down, she said. Once he was taken to an ambulance and covered in blankets he began to recover, she said. Ms. Rodriguez's partner, Mike Benny, who turned 37 today, also brought a survivor to the hospital. Mr. Benny had been one of the first responders to the crash site and said he was relieved to see the damage wasn't as bad as he expected.

—Jonathan Rockoff, Amir Efrati and Nathan Koppel and Kelly Evans


US Airways Crash: Statements From Passengers, Witnesses, Rescuers..

WITH MALAYSIAKINI: immaculate, the hero of Hudson

Immaculate,
unflappable and
ow the hero of Hudson
by James Bone

Chesley B Sullenberger and family

The unflappable pilot who landed his US Airways jet safely on the Hudson River in New York was described by a friend last night as one of the last American gentlemen.

Captain Chesley B “Sully” Sullenberger III, who guided the crippled US Airways Flight 1549 to an emergency landing in the river, just off Manhattan’s West 48th Street, was compared to David Niven.

Friends said they were not surprised that the courtly silver-haired aviator and crisis-management expert had saved the lives of all 155 people on board. His unprecedented feat of landing a commercial airliner on water without any loss of life has been dubbed “The Miracle on the Hudson”.

Captain Sullenberger’s wife, Lorrie, described last night how he called her to break the news, having pulled off one of the most dramatic escapes in aviation history. “There’s been an accident,” he told her, minutes after ditching his stricken Airbus A320 in the freezing river.

Both engines are believed to have been knocked out when the jet hit a flock of geese shortly after take-off from LaGuardia airport on Thursday.

After steering the aircraft away from heavily populated Manhattan, Captain Sullenberger glided the powerless jet down into the water intact, less than 300m from George Washington Bridge.

While the aircraft began to sink, Captain Sullenberger, 57, twice walked the length of the jet to ensure that all 150 passengers and four crew were off safely before leaving himself. Then he called his wife.

“At first I thought it was something minor, but then he told me the circumstances and my body started shaking and I rushed to get our daughters out of school,” Mrs Sullenberger, 50, said.

His wife, a fitness trainer, fought back tears of happiness as she described the shock on realising the scale of the incident. “My body won’t stop shaking. I think he’s fine. I’m relieved,” she said at home with her two daughters in Danville, California. “Like everyone else, I was stunned when he called. Your mind never goes through something like this.

“We’d just like to say that we are very grateful that everyone is off the airplane safely. And that was really what my husband asked me to convey to everyone.”

But she was not surprised that the former Air Force pilot with 40 years of flying experience should have played down his role. “I have said for a long time: he’s a pilot’s pilot and he loves the art of the airplane,” she said.

Mrs Sullenberger admitted that the family found it strange to hear the world calling her husband a hero. She said that when her two daughters went to sleep on Thursday night, “I could hear them talking, ‘Is this weird or what?’”

Captain Sullenberger was due to meet investigators yesterday as salvage crews brought in a crane to hoist the aircraft on to a barge from its mooring at Manhattan’s Battery Park City.

Only a wing tip could be seen jutting out of the water and divers were last night inspecting the jet, expected to be raised today. Until then, the black box, located in the semi-submerged tail, remained out of reach.

After radioing the control tower to report a “double bird strike”, Captain Sullenberger considered emergency landings at two airports, but told air controllers he would be unable to make them and instead took the decision to put the jet down in the river.

Experts praised his skill in landing the plane without either the nose or the wings ploughing into the water, which would have flipped the aircraft. Officials said the jet only suffered damage to one wing, allowing the fuselage to stay intact so that it did not flood completely.

Passengers scrambled out of the emergency exits at the front and over the wings, while leaving the rear exits closed to keep the water out. They waited knee-high in water on the wings or in inflatable life rafts until Manhattan-New Jersey ferries sped to their rescue.

Billy Campbell, a passenger who shared a rescue raft with the pilot, said: “I leaned over and grabbed his arm, and I said ‘I just want to thank you on behalf of all of us’. He just said, ‘You’re welcome’.”

Barry Leonard, a passenger who was travelling in the first row, said: “I got into the raft. But it obviously was very cold. One of the pilots gave me his shirt. The pilot gave me the shirt off his back to keep me warm.” He was speaking from his hospital bed, still clutching the pilot’s shirt.

Jeff Kolodjay, another passenger, from Norwalk, Connecticut, said: “The pilot told us to brace for impact and that pilot did one hell of a job making sure everyone, or the vast majority of people, got off.”

Brad Wentzell said: “He is the reason my daughter, my two-year-old, has a dad and my wife, a husband.”

A police officer said: “After the crash he was sitting there in the ferry terminal, wearing his hat, sipping his coffee and acting like nothing happened.”

Captain Sullenberger grew up in Texas, watching aircraft from the edge of a local airstrip and earned his pilot’s licence at the age of 14 while still in school. He joined US Airways in 1980 after serving as an F4 Phantom fighter pilot in the US Air Force for seven years. The head of a consulting company called Safety Reliability Methods, he also has a master’s degree in psychology and has acted as safety chairman of the pilots’ union.

Neighbours describe him as a devoted family man. The family takes part in charity walks and raises guide dogs for the blind.

Robert Bea, a close friend, said: “I think he is feeling tired. I think he is also feeling satisfied that he was able to actually do what he had prepared for during his life.”

President Bush praised the crew’s “skill and heroism” and Michael Bloomberg, the Mayor of New York, offered them the keys of the city.

Deadly risks of ditching

2005 Tuninter flight 1153 lost power after running out of fuel off Sicily. The plane was found in three pieces. Of 39 on board, 14 died

2000 Kenya Airways Flight 431 took off from Nairobi for Lagos but changed course owing to bad weather and flew to Abidjan. After a three-hour stop-off the plane took off for Lagos but crashed into the ocean a minute later. Only 10 passengers out of 179 survived

1998 Swiss Air Flight 111 landed in the Atlantic after a fire broke out at 33,000ft. All 229 people on board were killed

1996 An Ethiopian Boeing 727 had to make an emergency landing when it ran out of fuel after being hijacked off the coast of the Comoros. The pilot was landing the aircraft when a hijacker grabbed the controls, causing the plane’s wing tip to hit the water and spiral out of control. Out of 175 people on board, 125 were killed

1982 Air Florida Flight 90 crashed into the River Potomac soon after take-off from Washington National Airport. It hit the 14th Street Bridge before landing in the river. The crew had failed to turn on anti-ice systems and had taken off using less power than they needed because of frozen instruments. Four died in cars on the bridge, 74 in the plane. Four passengers and one flight attendant survived.

[Immaculate, unflappable and now the hero of the Hudson
Times Online ]

Air New Zealand A320 crash.

48-hour wait for last words from black box

The first answers as to why an Air New Zealand jet crashed into the Mediterranean Sea could be known in days, as investigators carefully piece together the doomed crew's final conversations.

The aircraft's cockpit voice recorder is heading to Paris today where it will be dried before data extraction begins. Divers were last night working to retrieve the flight data recorder - the most vital of the two black boxes.

The crucial development came as families of the dead touched down at the same airport their loved ones should have landed at days earlier.

Seven crew members died as the Airbus A320 went into the sea last Friday in what some here are saying was a bid by its pilots to avoid hitting the small seaside town of Canet, near Perpignan on the French south coast.

Five New Zealanders were on the aircraft, along with the two German pilots who were preparing it for handing back to Air New Zealand.

The recovery of the black box came as Air New Zealand chief executive Rob Fyfe arrived overnight with the family of engineer Murray White.

Other family members, including Sally Cook, the wife of Wellington engineer Jeremy Cook, were due to arrive last night.

Perpignan's deputy prosecutor Dominique Alzeari said the voice recorder was in good condition.

"The last minutes of the flight will provide information on the causes of the crash," he said.

Aviation Industry Association chief executive Irene King said the data recorder was the most important of the black boxes because it monitored everything to do with the plane, including its engines, electronics and flight management system.

"With the combination of the [voice and data recorder] on the A320, they should be able to tell exactly what's gone on, pretty quickly."

She said the voice recorder contained the last 30 or so minutes of conversation between the pilots and air traffic control.

"It's quite limited in what it contains, but what they'll be looking for is any clear acknowledgment from the pilots that they knew something was seriously wrong." More than 40 divers worked for several hours yesterday and were returning to the water last night to continue searching for bodies and the second black box.

Bad weather and murky waters hampered recovery efforts, but French authorities said retrieving the missing bodies was the main priority.

Divers have been unable to get into the cockpit where remains are likely to be located.

"We want to return the bodies to their families in the best of conditions and as fast as possible, with dignity," Mr Alzeari said.

The two bodies that have been found have been taken to Montpellier for dna testing.

Gendarme Pierre Renault said once the other bodies were retrieved they could be handed over to families "so they can start mourning".

Perpignan's L'independant newspaper reported that it appeared the pilots tried to avoid hitting the village of Canet.

"It ascended and then cut out. That was it, then nothing. It fell. I can tell you it was only flying on one engine ... and with only one engine there was nothing to be done," said retired aviation mechanic Claude Pedro, who saw the crash.

"What is certain, is that the aircraft could easily have crashed and fallen on Canet.

"In some way, they sacrificed their lives to save others and to try to save the aircraft."

Voices from the sea Stuff.co.nz