A masterful job done by Chesley B. Sullenberger III, 57, saved the lives of 155 people aboard a US Airways jetliner that ditched into the icy Hudson River Thursday after being brought down by a what initial investigations suggest was a flock of birds – variously described as gulls or geese. Flight 1549 had taken off from La Guardia at 3:26 P.M., bound for Charlotte. It headed north, rose to 3,200 feet across the East River and over the Bronx on a route that would involve a sweeping left turn to head south. About a minute into the flight, the Airbus A320's engines ingested a flock of birds and shut down. For Sullenberger, a former fighter pilot who runs a safety consulting firm in addition to flying commercial aircraft and studying the psychology of keeping airline crews functioning even in the face of crisis, the challenge was unprecedented. He radioed air traffic controllers on Long Island that his plane had sustained a “double bird strike.” Without power, returning to the airport was out of the question, aviation experts said. Sullenberger saw a small airport in the distance, apparently at Teterboro, N.J., but made a command decision to avoid densely populated areas and try for a water landing, a rare event that is mentioned in the safety instructions given by flight crews to all passengers on every flight. Aviation experts said such a maneuver is tricky. An angle of descent that is too steep could break off the wings and send the aircraft to the bottom. Neighbors of the pilot, who lives in Danville, Calif., about 40 miles east of San Francisco, described Sullenberger as calm, controlled and the kind of person who handles emergencies well. “If anybody could do it, it would be him,” said one neighbor, Frank Salzmann. On the plane, passengers heard the pilot say on the intercom, “Brace for impact.” One passenger, Elizabeth McHugh, 64, of Charlotte, seated on the aisle near the rear, said flight attendants shouted more instructions: feet flat on the floor, heads down, cover your heads. “I prayed and prayed and prayed,” she said. “Believe me, I prayed.” Witnesses in high-rise buildings on both sides of the Hudson River said the plane gradually came downriver, its fuselage lower than many apartment terraces and windows, in a carefully executed touchdown shortly after 3:30 P.M. that sent up huge plumes of water at midstream, between West 48th Street in Manhattan and Weehawken, N.J. Neil Lasher, 62, a consultant for Sony Music Publishing who lives in a 27th-floor apartment near the shore in Guttenberg, N.J., saw it happen. “As soon as the plane hit the water,” he said, “I could see the New York Waterway ferries from New York and the Jersey side, within a minute, heading toward the airplane.” Most of the passengers and crew had their heads down as the jetliner slammed into the water, nose slightly up. The aircraft began to spin counterclockwise in the water and to drift south with the current. “As soon as we hit, we all jolted frontward and sideways, and then the water started coming in around my feet,” Ms. McHugh said. She got up and was pushed along the aisle and out an exit, then slid down an inflated slide into a life raft. Sullenberger walked the plane twice and made sure that there was nobody behind him. President George W. Bush called Sullenberger to thank him for saving the lives of the passengers. White House press secretary Dana Perino said Bush commended Sullenberger for his bravery and heroic efforts. Sullenberger's wife told CNN she hadn't been watching the news and was stunned to hear about the ordeal from her husband after it was all over. “I've heard Sully say to people, `It's rare for an airline pilot to have an incident in their career,'” Lorrie Sullenberger said. “When he called me he said, ‘There's been an accident.'” Surely the understatement of the year.
