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karatecatman · Guest

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Ice is forming on the river and on the plane. New headache for the recovery teams.

Update
-- Search on for the engines as well, estimated to lie at a depth of 60 feet and possibly far away from where they originally detached. Experts says the Hudson is so murky with silt that divers will have to feel for the engines after it is located by sonar.
-- They are also hoping that there are some remains of the birds in te engines to help them identify the species.
-- Pilot and crew are being questioned by the NTSB. They are interested to know why he didnt try aand make it back to the alternate airports.
-- CFM also helping out.
-- For a change, investigation to start with what went right instead of what went wrong!
-- US State Department rules out terrorism Rolling Eyes

-- Aircraft recovery to begin soon. It will be hoisted out for a few feet to let the water drain out. Pumps will then drain out the rest. Sensors to be attached to the wings and undercarriage to determine the load. Aircraft will then be transferred to the barge with its wings overhanging the sides of the barge.

This was how it was earlier in the day.
Copyright picture

***
Hope there are more inputs/pictures from Cathay, 747-237, Tex, US members of ai-net!

Cathay777 · Member Joined: 05 Dec 2007 Posts: 84

[quote="karatecatman"]

karatecatman · Guest

karatecatman · Guest

Update 1
NTSB now says the right engine is still attached to the aircraft.

karatecatman · Guest

HAWK21M · Posted: Sun Jan 18, 2009 1:09 am Post subject:

Looking Fwd to reading the Interview with the P1.
regds
MEL
_________________
Think of the Brighter side !!!

karatecatman · Guest

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Airbus has been secured. Lifting should start soon.

karatecatman · Guest

www.usatoday.com/news/nation/2009-01-17-jet-investigation_N.htm?csp=34
NTSB: Pilot feared airport landing would be 'catastrophic'
By Alan Levin, USA TODAY

NEW YORK — The captain of a stricken US Airways jet intentionally steered away from airports on either side of the Hudson River, fearing that if he tried to land in those heavily populated areas it could be "catastrophic," he told investigators Saturday.
Capt. Chesley B. "Sully" Sullenberger, 58, took over the controls of the Airbus A320 shortly after it struck a flock of large brown birds, according to his first account of the splashdown in the river Thursday afternoon released by the National Transportation Safety Board.

The birds snuffed out the jet's two engines almost immediately, filling the plane with the smell of what Sullenberger described as "burning birds," said NTSB board member Kitty Higgins.

While copilot Jeffrey B. Skiles, 49, desperately tried to restart the jet's two engines, Sullenberger tilted the jet's nose downward to keep up its speed and assessed his options. To his left was LaGuardia Airport, an urban airport surrounded on three sides by dense neighborhoods.

"Too low, too slow, too many buildings, too populated an area," he recalled thinking, according to Higgins.

A few miles to the right lay Teterboro Airport in New Jersey, which is used for corporate jets.

"The captain said it was farther away," Higgins said. "He'd never been there. Didn't think he could make it. And was concerned that if he didn't make it, it was also a populated area. The consequences would have been catastrophic if they didn't make it."

Two days after the jet carrying 150 passengers and five crewmembers splashed down into the frigid waters of the Hudson without a single fatality, dramatic details of the brief flight emerged.

The preliminary evidence of what caused the mishap is pointing more strongly toward an impact with birds, according to information released by Higgins. A passenger sitting in the first class section reported seeing birds hit the jet, a flight attendant told investigators, Higgins said. And two FAA radars spotted vague targets in the path of the jet that are consistent with a flock of birds, she said.

Meanwhile, contractors under the supervision of the NTSB are attempting the delicate task of lifting the jet out of the water. The jet has been lashed to a pier in lower Manhattan since Thursday night.

Hoisting the water-logged jet will be difficult, Higgins said. The single-aisle jet filled with water weighs about 1 million pounds, as much as the mammoth Airbus A380 double-decker jet, she said. The effort will continue through the night, she said.

Sullenberger and Skiles both said that a large flock of birds struck the plane shortly after takeoff from LaGuardia.

Skiles, who had over 15,000 hours flying experience but only 35 hours in the A320, was at the controls as the jet climbed toward the north. They estimated their speed at about 250 to 280 mph.

Skiles saw the birds first, Higgins said. They were flying in a "perfect line formation" off to the right of the jet's nose, Higgins said. He initially thought that the plane would fly over the birds and mentioned it to Sullenberger, Higgins said.

"When (Sullenberger) looked up, he said the windscreen was filled with birds," Higgins said. The captain said his instinct was to duck, though he did not. They both heard a boom and felt the impact.

About this time, 98 seconds after an air-traffic controller had cleared them to takeoff, one of the pilots radioed a grim distress call, according to a preliminary transcript of radio calls released by Higgins.

"Ah, this is Cactus 1549," the pilot said, using the airline's shorthand identification and flight number. "Hit birds. We lost thrust in both engines. We're turning back torwards LaGuardia."

After the initial report of trouble at 2:27:32 p.m., a controller handling departures from LaGuardia asked the pilots if they wanted to land on Runway 13 at LaGuardia.

"The pilot responded, 'We are unable. We may end up in the Hudson,' " Higgins said. Investigators have not identified whether Sullenberger or Skiles made the radio calls.

The pilot and the controller discussed a possible landing at Teterboro Airport just across the Hudson in New Jersey, but the pilot responded, "We can't do it," she said.

Seconds later, the controller asked the pilot which runway he would like to land on. "The pilot responded, 'We're gonna be in the Hudson.' That was the last communiqué from the plane."

Investigators Saturday also talked to the flight's three flight attendants.

The attendants heard a loud thud of the bird impact, then silence. "All of the engine noise ceased," Higgins said the attendants reported. "They described it as complete silence. … It was like being in a library."

"Then an announcement came from the captain: 'Brace for impact,'" Higgins said. "The flight attendants then ordered the passengers to, "'Brace, brace! Heads down!' "

A flight attendant in the rear of the jet, where the doors were below the water line, told investigators that she tried to get passengers to go forward to exit. But one female passenger insisted on trying to open one of the rear emergency exits, allowing water to enter the plane, Higgins said.

The attendant, who has 38 years experience on the job, waded in the cold water up to her chest before leaving the plane, Higgins said. Only then did she feel woozy and notice a gash on her leg.

They described an orderly evacuation, Higgins said. As has been described in earlier accounts, Sullenberger walked the aisles several times to make sure everyone was off the plane, the attendants told investigators.

Much has been made of a design feature of the A320 known as a "ditching switch" that seals underside of the jet in the event of a water landing to make the aircraft more buoyant.

According to Higgins, the pilots never activated it. Instructions to do so are at the end of a three-page check list for a twin-engine failure. Skiles did not have time to finish the check list in the roughly three minutes from impact to water touchdown, she said.

***
Clears up the issue. Earlier one of the passengers said the cabin crew tried to open the rear exit, which is not the case now.

HAWK21M · Posted: Sun Jan 18, 2009 12:04 pm Post subject:

Hopefully its not a writeoff.
regds
MEL
_________________
Think of the Brighter side !!!

karatecatman · Guest

Sent by email
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Appeared in the Charlotte Observer

NEW YORK - JANUARY 17: The U.S. Airways Airbus A320 is placed on a barge in the Hudson River Saturday January 17, 2009 in New York City. U.S. Airways Flight 1549 crashed shortly after take-off from LaGuardia Airport heading to Charlotte, North Carolina on January 15, 2009. The National Transportation Safety Board hopes to recover the black box data and voice recorders and other important components that will help determine the cause of the crash. (Photo by Daniel Barry/Getty Images)

karatecatman · Guest

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NTSB has now removed the CVR, FR AND EWGPS.

karatecatman · Guest

Conspiracy theories are around. Sabotage and not bird-hit is supposed to be key one. Neutral

airindia787 · Member Joined: 18 Nov 2007 Posts: 770 Location: DAB & ZTF

It must have been difficult getting the aircraft out of the water in all the ice and frigid temperatures. When it gets to be 0F at night not only the water freezes, the aircraft freezes, and the crane that lifts the aircraft out of the water runs the risk of freezing.

It's amazing in my opinion how so many people managed to get out without getting hypothermia.

Just FYI last Thursday in the NY area the temperatures were a frigid 16F (-9C) during the day, and 0F (-18C) at night. It was unbearable to go outside to say the least, even all covered up.
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karatecatman · Guest

Guess its snowing again!

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The badly damaged wing area under inspection

texdravid · Posted: Sun Jan 18, 2009 10:10 pm Post subject:

To Messiers Cathay and Ryder:

Thank you so much for your comments about how I injected politics and my "narrow-mindedness" to your wonderful thread about the US Airways incident in NYC.

I truly take that to heart Rolling Eyes

, and as a measure of showing how I feel, I would like to share this bit of how some in the media are injecting politics/Obama into this topic:

(Courtesy of Newsbusters.org):

BLITZER: But we've been going through a number of years now where people were starting to lose faith in the country. They were starting to lose faith in the future. They thought our best days were behind us. That's very, very -- that's a big break from our tradition. We've always been optimistic people. Well people are starting to lose confidence. And he has come along and rekindled that confidence.
I think that airplane that went down, the US Air flight and the pilot -- and Soledad and I were talking about this earlier and she was saying metaphorically in some ways, the pilot of that airplane is very much like Barack Obama -- that he got the plane down safely, but everybody else had to join together to get out of the plane and pull together to get through that adversity. I thought that was an interesting metaphor.

So you see, you would not want to be called a hypocrite, now would we?

So thus, I fully expect you two fine gentlemen to kindly roast Wolf Blitzer of CNN for injecting Obama into this otherwise fine discussion of the US Airways incident.

Laughing

As always, leave it to the purulent American media to compare a real hero, the Captain of the US airways plane, to an imagined political messiah who thrills simply by talking and promising.
_________________
"A communist is someone who reads Marx. An anti-communist is someone who understands Marx." Ronald Reagan

Proud Conservative in exile, soon to reawaken...

Charter member, Indians against Obama

karatecatman · Guest

Crew details

Captain Chesley B. Sullenberger, III, age 58, joined US Airways (PSA Airlines) in 1980. He has a total of 19,663 flight hours.

First officer Jeffrey B. Skiles, age 49, joined US Airways (USAir) in 1986. He has a total of 15,643 flight hours.

Flight Attendant Sheila Dail, age 57, joined US Airways (Piedmont Airlines) in 1980 and has more than 28 years experience with the airline.

Flight Attendant Doreen Welsh, age 58, joined US Airways (Allegheny Airlines) in 1970 and has more than 38 years experience with the airline.

Flight Attendant Donna Dent, age 51, joined US Airways (Piedmont Airlines) in 1982 and has more than 26 years experience with the airline.

sammyk · Posted: Sun Jan 18, 2009 10:42 pm Post subject:

Wow, a seniors flight.

flightgearpilot · Member Joined: 21 Dec 2006 Posts: 711 Location: VOBL

It is the era of the YouTube. Hudson river landing makes it to YouTube.

http://mashable.com/2009/01/17/hudson-crash-landing-makes-youtube-video/

saurabhm_101 · Member Joined: 19 Dec 2006 Posts: 529 Location: Mumbai

thats just scaryy!
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Flying High.... You and Me...!

karatecatman · Guest

karatecatman · Guest

www.nytimes.com/2009/01/19/nyregion/19plane.html?hp

January 19, 2009
Cockpit Tape Reveals Engine Loss and a ‘Mayday’
By MATTHEW L. WALD and AL BAKER
The cockpit voice recording from the plane that landed in the Hudson River on Thursday captured both the sound of an impact on the US Airways jet, presumably by birds, and the efforts of a crew that was going through what a senior investigator called a “very calm, collected exercise,” even though they were gliding lower and had no way to reach a runway.

The plane lost thrust in both engines soon after takeoff, and never reached an altitude above 3,200 feet, officials of the National Transportation Safety Board said on Sunday.

“About 90 seconds after takeoff, the captain remarks about birds,” said Kathryn O. Higgins, one of the agency’s five board members, in characterizing what could be heard on the cockpit voice recording. The recording was played in the board’s laboratory in Washington on Sunday and described to Ms. Higgins, who has been assigned to the scene. “One second later, the cockpit voice recorder recorded the sound of thumps and a rapid decrease in engine sounds,” she said.

The recorder helped illustrate how the crew departed from the usual script once they realized their dire circumstances.

Usually, one pilot flies the plane and the other works the radios, but in this case, it was Captain Chesley B. Sullenberger III doing both, while the first officer, Jeffrey B. Skiles, rushed to try to accomplish a “restart” checklist. But even if the engines could have been restarted, he had very little time: Flight 1549 ditched into the river three and a half minutes after the engines lost power.

The voice recorder also captured the captain declaring “Mayday,” but the tape of air-to-ground communications did not, possibly because he said the word before he pressed the button on the microphone that would begin a radio transmission. Still, Ms. Higgins said, when she listened to that tape, “It was a very routine conversation, that’s how I would characterize it. I was more nervous than they appeared to be, listening to it.”

Typically, the full air-to-ground tape is released by the Federal Aviation Administration within weeks of an incident; the safety board generally releases a transcript of cockpit voice recordings in a few months.

On first examination, the two recorders, which were recovered from the plane early Sunday, confirmed details given by the cockpit crew in interviews, she said.

Robert Benzon, the safety board investigator in charge, described the cockpit conversation as calm and collected. He said that an initial look at the right engine, the only one still attached to the plane, showed a few dents on the cowling but not much damage to the fan blades at the front. But foreign objects can sometimes do greater damage deeper inside the engine, he said.

As the plane was hauled out of the water late Saturday in Battery Park City, where it had been moored, the right engine showed debris that “looked like grunge to me,” he said, but that might have been mud or seaweed, rather than bird remains.

The search for the left engine, which is believed to be in the general area of where the plane landed, has been delayed by ice in the river. Ms. Higgins said that New York Police Department searchers had a “positive hit” on an object on the river bottom that was the right size to be an engine, and was in a plausible spot, but that using better sonar or a remote-controlled camera would probably have to wait because of heavy ice. They marked the spot for exploration, she said.

The police, she said, were “quite familiar with the bottom out there,” and had not seen this object before. The police, however, seemed less certain that the “hit” was the engine.

Progress on examining the plane has been slow because the deck of the barge where it is being kept is slippery with ice and fuel, Mr. Benzon said. The fuel tank in the right wing has a small leak, and investigators and salvagers decided to empty it before moving the barge to a Jersey City marina, where it was to be inspected by investigators.

The now-familiar images of passengers standing on the wings, waiting for boats to rescue them, raised the question of whether the plane, an Airbus A320, carried enough life rafts. Mr. Benzon said that there was room for all the passengers on the emergency slides, which in a water landing become rafts.

Ms. Higgins said one reason everyone survived was that the plane carried “very senior flight attendants.” All were in their 50s, according to US Airways. “This is a testament to experienced women doing their jobs, because they were, and it worked,” said Ms. Higgins, who has worked for several federal agencies since 1969.

On Sunday night, the US Airways plane gleamed under the lights as it rested on the barge, before it left Battery Park City. The windows from the wing exits were missing, the right front door hung askew and a deflated slide from a rear door trailed from the plane’s body. The heavy hum of a tugboat’s diesel engine was a reminder that this was an accident scene, not a surreal sculpture. Ms. Higgins, asked if the plane would ever fly again, said, “Only in the movies.”

karatecatman · Guest

www.flightglobal.com/articles/2009/01/23/321591/hudson-a320-partial-engine-power-aided-textbook-ditching.html
Hudson A320: Partial engine power aided textbook ditching
By John Croft
Sources close to the on-going investigation of US Airways Flight 1549 say that the Airbus A320's number 1 (left) engine continued to run at approximately 35% fan speed (N1) during the three-minute window between striking birds at 3,200ft and ditching in the Hudson River on 15 January. All 150 passengers and five crew safely exited the Charlotte-bound aircraft in the river, aided by nearby ferry boat crews in a spectacle that captured global interest and fueled renewed admiration for airline training and professionalism.

Though limited, the left engine's speed would have been adequate to keep the aircraft's generators and hydraulic systems on-line, providing "normal" flight control laws and communications as well as giving pilots ability to deploy flaps and slats, elements that proved critical to performing a low-speed water landing. To maintain altitude on a single engine however, experts say the powerplant would have had to been running at 70% N1 or more.

Investigators planned to retrieve the left engine, which broke from the aircraft during the ditching, from the river bottom Friday or Saturday to perform an inspection. Flight International has learned that the aircraft touched down at 125-130kt airspeed with flaps and slats both in the "2" position, or midpoint, position. An A320 normally lands at 120-125kt with fully deployed flaps and slats.

The right engine, which remained attached to the aircraft after ditching, was apparently operating at only 15% fan speed, according to sources. Investigators afterward determined that the engine had received "soft body impact damage" to its first stage fan blades. In addition three variable guide vanes were fractured and two were missing. The engine's electronic control unit was missing and "numerous" internal components were "significantly" damaged, said the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) in a 21 January update on the accident.

The NTSB says the organic material that was found in the right engine and on the wings and fuselage after the aircraft was lifted onto a barge will be identified through DNA analysis, and a feather found attached to the flap track on the wing was sent to the Smithsonian Institution for identification.

Officials have also confirmed that the A320's Hamilton Sundstrand-built ram air turbine (RAT) had deployed from its compartment near the root of the left wing during the event and that the Honeywell auxiliary power unit in the tail had been operating. Though the RAT will deploy automatically when engine or electric power drops below a threshold, pilots can also manually deploy the propeller-driven emergency system. The device provides power to one of three hydraulic systems onboard which would have given pilots the ability to deploy slats but not flaps.

Sources tell Flight International that the first officer had tried to relight the left engine during the descent, which averaged 1,000fpm rate, but that the engine did not respond other than to continue spinning at 35% N1. It's possible the pilots restarted the APU in order to have bleed air available to help restart the left engine as the A320's airspeed was relatively low.

Pilots review ditching procedures in textbooks during recurrent training but do not practice the events in simulators as there are no test-verified models available. Pilots do however practice double engine-out scenarios with a re-light afterward. NTSB has completed its interviews of the pilots, flight attendants and air traffic controllers and was working to wrap up its fact finding with passengers and a crew that two days earlier experienced a compressor stall on the accident aircraft. That event does not appear to be related to the 15 January accident.

Though US Airways provides all seats in its pre-America West merger A320s with life vests, which includes the accident aircraft, the former A320 captain says there would not have been time to fly and diagnose the aircraft in addition to alert the passengers to the situation and asking them to don the vests before landing. Pilots also did not activate the A320's "ditch" button which automatically configures the various valves and openings on the aircraft for ditching, a preparation the former A320 captain says is about three pages into the ditching checklist. "Some of the flight attendants didn’t even know they were going into the water," he says of the short window of opportunity during the descent. "There was not enough time for any of it."

stealthpilot · Member Joined: 19 Dec 2006 Posts: 2325 Location: BLR, DXB

Very nice article, some interesting things were mentioned…

Engine 1 was supplying the onside generator and hydraulic system.
APU was running (or turned on during their glide…).
A/c was in normal law
So they had electricals (nothing vital degraded) and green/blue hydraulic system and were in normal law.

The RAT shouldn’t auto deploy if Gen 1 was online, they probably did it manually (speculation)

Still a fabolous job by the crew!!
_________________
eP007

karatecatman · Guest

www.wired.com/culture/art/news/2009/05/gallery_flight_1549?currentPage=all
The Unlikely Events of a Water Landing: New Photos From Flight 1549
By Matthew Schechmeister 05.13.09

On Jan. 15, 2009, a few Canadian geese with bad timing became snarge, a steely pilot became a hero, and the world became fascinated with images of a jet splashing into the Hudson River and then floating calmly as passengers crowded its wings.

But until now, few people have seen the equally surprising pictures of the second half of this story: when a salvage team used the biggest floating crane on the East Coast to pluck the ill-fated Airbus A320 from the frigid water.

Photographer Stephen Mallon was at a happy hour with his wife on the evening US Air Flight 1549 made the news. As people in the bar chatted about what was going on, he realized that he knew exactly who the authorities would turn to for help. Mallon specializes in documenting industrial subjects, and had been photographing the work of maritime contractor Weeks Marine, a company that had been hired to dump derelict subway cars into the ocean to create artificial reefs.

On a hunch, Mallon put down his drink to call Jason Marchioni, manager of Weeks' Heavy Lift Division. The next morning, the photographer confirmed that Weeks had been tapped for the salvage job, and the company offered to hire him to record the operation. By the afternoon the ecstatic photographer was aboard a tugboat headed to the scene.

"I was basically drooling at this point," says Mallon. "I had already pretty much packed, just in case the call came in. So I jumped in my car, grabbed my camera gear and got out to their yard in Bayonne and got on a tugboat. And we just headed out."

- - -

Read on for a profile of the only photographer with exclusive access to this massive salvage operation and to see just what it takes to pull a commercial airliner out of the Hudson.

Mallon: "It was incredible standing on the pier looking down, and every once in a while saying to myself and the people next to me: 'There's a plane in the water right there!'"

Editor's note: Some of these images have been altered by Stephen Mallon to remove the US Airways logo at the company's request.

Photos: Stephen Mallon

<<previous>>

While the TV cameras were cordoned off behind a jogging trail that separates nearby Riverview Terrace from the Hudson, Mallon was in the middle of the action, actually shooting from the barges and tugs that were taking part in the salvage.

"They had all the media back on the road … because there was still a little bit of concern that the plane might explode," Mallon says.

When he first arrived, Mallon found the aircraft halfway submerged, a visual non sequitur that had the helpless look of "a beached whale." At the time, Weeks Marine's seven-man dive crew was making a painstaking survey of the aircraft's exterior, protected by heated wetsuits as they slogged in the icy water.

With visibility as low as a foot and half, the divers had to rely on touch alone, checking for damage that might cause the aircraft to break apart under stress. After 12 hours of assessment, the salvage crew was ready to engage their burliest member: a giant floating crane affectionately dubbed "the Big Bitch."

Photos: Stephen Mallon

<<previous>>

Mounted on a barge that measures 300 feet long and 90 feet wide, the Big Bitch — more formally known as "Weeks 533" — swings a 248-foot long boom that can lift up to 500 tons, making it the largest rotating crane in the eastern United States.

It boasts two 100-foot long steel pipes that run through the barge and can be plunged into the seafloor, allowing operators to self-anchor the crane, which can operate in less than seven feet of water.

Though the Airbus would be relatively light compared to the massive transformers and other industrial equipment that the crane usually handles, the trick was to lift the plane out without snapping it in two.

By around 10 p.m. on Saturday, Jan. 17, the dive crew had secured the body of the aircraft with two straps, one under each wing. They rigged the plane's tail with a separate cable, so operators could angle the aircraft's nose downward after it broke the surface, draining water through the open doors.

Mallon was shooting from the barge directly in front of the crane while the lift was in progress.

"I was sitting on top of the crane a few minutes earlier," he says, "I just grabbed my camera and ran down there."

Jason Marchioni, who directed the salvage operation at the ground level and had worked with Mallon in the past, gave him broad access to the scene.

"Stephen is the best photographer in the world," he says, "He doesn't get involved with me when I'm on the job. He knows when we can talk and when we don't have time to talk. He does his own thing."

After the crash, Marchioni won the salvage contract by arguing to the National Transportation Safety Board that his team had the know-how to pull the plane out in one piece, which the NTSB deemed critical to its investigation.

Besides combustible jet fuel, one of Marchioni's major concerns was to keep tight control of the airplane's attitude as it left the water. "Once you start lifting that plane out of the water, not only do you have the weight of the plane, you also have the weight of the water," he said. "That plane that weighed 80 tons is now filled with 400 tons of water so that plane weighs almost 500 tons."

Photos: Stephen Mallon

<<previous>>

By midnight, the crew had successfully loaded the plane onto a waiting barge to be transported to a Weeks facility in New Jersey (pictured above).

After having spent so much effort trying to keep their cargo intact, Weeks' next job was to cut off the plane's wings with plasma torches and haul the pieces to a warehouse for analysis by the NTSB.

Mallon: "My dad gave me his [Canon AE-1] camera to take a photo of him and my mom when I was about 3. It was the coolest thing ever."

Mallon: "I was originally hoping to follow the footsteps of Maverick in Top Gun, but after a medical condition made it unlikely that I could become a fighter pilot, I started focusing on my other interest of photography."

Photos: Stephen Mallon

<<previous>>

Mallon was back with the Weeks Marine crew a week after the initial salvage for the lifting of the A320's second engine.

"The water was 60-to-65 feet deep where the engine was located," says Marchioni. "One diver just went down and placed lifting slings around the engine."

The engine weighs about 13,000 pounds, and was hauled out of the mud by another of Weeks' floating cranes.

Mallon: "These were the kind of pictures I was taking before I went to photo school. I was going out to airports and the rail yards and construction sites and photographing them before I was thinking about ever making any money with pictures."

Mallon: "I'm just basically a kid in a giant sandbox running around at these places."

Photos: Stephen Mallon

<<previous>>

A few weeks after the salvage, Mallon rode along with the dismembered fuselage as it wound its way through New Jersey byways.

He captured the surreal juxtapositions of the jetliner pulling past a gas station and scraping tree branches on a suburban street.

"This woman came out on her porch," Mallon says, "And I remember her turning to the left and going ‘Oh, shit!'"

Mallon: "I was taking color darkroom printing classes when I was 17 and shot my first assignment for the local newspaper when I was 18 years old."

Photos: Stephen Mallon

<<previous>>

As it turned out, the nonplussed New Jersey woman wasn't the only one to be caught by surprise. Mallon would soon find out that his historic photos might never be seen publicly again.

Although Mallon had been shooting in full view of the investigators from the National Transportation Safety Board, when his photos hit the web, the agency became uncomfortable. They ordered him to remove the gallery he had posted on his personal site.

The bureaucrats relented after about two weeks, allowing Mallon to repost the pictures, minus any shots of the interior of the plane. Shortly after that, a lawyer for US Airways and its insurer A.I.G. told Mallon to remove the photos once again, arguing that the airline and insurer were Mallon's ultimate clients.

Mallon described the reasoning as "US Airways hired AIG who hired the lawyer who hired [lead contractor] J. Supor and Son who hired Weeks Marine who hired me."

However, the two sides ultimately compromised: Mallon agreed to erase any obvious US Airways logos from his photos, and AIG and US Airways permitted the photos back into the world — to Mallon's great relief.

You can check out Mallon's photos in his upcoming exhibit opening Sept. 18 at The Front Room Gallery in Brooklyn.

Photos: Stephen Mallon

karatecatman · Guest

www.usatoday.com/money/industries/travel/2009-05-19-flight-1549-luggage-returned_N.htm
Flight 1549 passengers get baggage back after Hudson splash down

Passengers from US Airways Flight 1549, which made a memorable landing in the Hudson River, have started receiving the belongings they left on the aircraft from a Texas-based company that specializes in disaster recoveries.

By Marilyn Adams, USA TODAY
It wasn't until after US Airways Flight 1549 had landed in the Hudson River, and passenger Karin Hill was stepping through an emergency exit onto the wing, that it hit her.
"I thought, 'My coat! My purse!' " she recalls. They were both back at seat 18E, where she was sitting Jan. 15 when the jetliner hit birds, destroying its engines and forcing it to ditch in the Hudson.

Then logic returned. "I can't get them," she thought. "I'm not going back there."

The 150 passengers left their belongings behind for the Hudson to claim as they scrambled onto life rafts and rescue boats and the jet sank beneath 50 feet of dirty water.

Hill, 24, a college student from Boulder, Colo., was flying home with boyfriend Chris Rooney after visiting friends and seeing the sights in New York City. She hurried off the plane wearing blue jeans, a sweater and boots, leaving her purse, backpack and a coat in the cabin and a suitcase in the cargo compartment.

Hill and other passengers never dreamed they would see their possessions again. But this month, Flight 1549 passengers are starting to get special deliveries: FedEx boxes containing dried and cleaned wallets, handbags, coats, cameras, jewelry, clothing, important papers, even toothbrushes — rescued from a watery grave.

In a large, complex effort, US Airways (LCC) has with the help of a Texas-based company spent four months recovering, sorting, cleaning and restoring 36,000 passenger belongings pulled from the plane.

Inside Hill's FedEx box were her wallet and everything in it, a Swarovski crystal bracelet Rooney gave her for Christmas, a digital camera and souvenirs including a Playbill from the Broadway showWicked.

Seeing her things again "was bittersweet, because it brought back memories," she says. Although the camera broke, "I never thought I'd get those pictures back, and they were fine."

She was stunned to see clear images of the Empire State Building, Ellis Island, Central Park and Tiffany, where she tried on engagement rings.

And there was a shot of her and Rooney smiling at the gate, waiting to board Flight 1549.

Everything was soaked

Days after the accident, US Airways sent every passenger a ticket refund and a $5,000 check for immediate expenses. Although much of the multimillion-dollar recovery job will be covered by US Airways' insurance, US Airways was not legally required to do it.

When a fatal airline crash occurs, the Aviation Disaster Family Assistance Act requires airlines to return passenger possessions to passengers' families. Because no one died aboard Flight 1549, the law didn't apply.

"We did this because we care for our customers and care that things be done right for them," says Deborah Thompson, US Airways' director of emergency response, who coordinated the effort.

After the accident, US Airways called Global-BMS, a Fort Worth-based company that specializes in disaster recoveries. When the jet was hauled out of the Hudson and placed on a barge for inspection by accident investigators, Global official Mark Rocco was there, walking the cabin to tag and remove personal items to return them.

"There is a strange bond people have to their stuff, an emotional bond to the incident that's part of their journey forward," says Rocco, Global's senior vice president for transportation disaster services.

Even after days in the Hudson, the cabin's interior was eerily intact.

"It looked like it had been in a dirty carwash," recalls Rocco. "A lot of the overhead bins were still closed, and a lot of things were still stored under the seats. I saw a wallet on the floor and wondered why it hadn't floated out of the plane."

Everything was soaked and smelled of jet fuel. But every item the Global workers found was tagged with a unique tracking number, bagged and placed on a refrigerated truck bound for a Texas warehouse.

"Freezing puts things into suspended animation," Rocco says.

Back in Texas, Global began defrosting, cleaning and restoring everything it could — including everything inside carry-ons and suitcases — and figuring out who owned what. Most electronics didn't work after being submerged, although at least one laptop hard drive survived, US Airways says. Hill's digital photos did, too.

Among Global's techniques: heating fuel-soaked items to 90 degrees to evaporate the jet fuel, using a biocide to kill mold and bacteria, and old-fashioned dry-cleaning.

Identifying suitcases with name tags, as well as purses and wallets with driver's licenses, was easy. But more than 1,000 items have not been matched to owners, including many coats. Rocco says Global will post photos of the unidentified items on a secure website in hopes passengers can identify and claim them.

'I got it back'

Maryann Bruce managed to grab her purse and nothing else that day before bolting out of her seat and out the cabin door into a life raft. On her right hand she usually wore a large diamond ring she'd received on her 25th wedding anniversary two years earlier — but not this time.

Returning from the New York-based investment company that she is president of, Bruce had schlepped through LaGuardia Airport with a new laptop, her briefcase, purse, a mink coat and a carry-on suitcase.

"The ring must've smashed my finger," says Bruce, 49, of Charlotte. "By the time I got to the plane my finger was black and blue."

So she stashed the ring in a jewelry pouch in her carry-on in the overhead compartment. When the plane landed and the flight attendants ordered everyone off, "I knew I had to get off the plane even though the ring was up there."

After being rescued, "I thought I might get my suitcase back," she says. "But I thought someone might steal my jewelry along the way."

A couple of weeks ago, US Airways' Thompson flew to Charlotte to personally deliver Bruce's diamond ring along with her briefcase, fur coat — which had her name sewn inside — and suitcase. The coat and briefcase could not be fully restored, and something red inside Bruce's suitcase bled red dye on everything else when it got wet. Her electric toothbrush still worked.

And the diamond ring looked new.

"Oh my God, I got it back," Bruce says she thought when Thompson handed it over. "It changed hands so many times, and nobody took it."

Another item that came back, a little worse for wear but still legible: Bruce's boarding pass for seat 5D, Flight 1549.

"I plan on framing that," she says.

***

RECOVERING POSSESSIONS

On Jan. 15, US Airways Flight 1549 from New York to Charlotte strikes a flock of birds shortly after takeoff and loses engine power. The pilot makes a forced landing in the frigid Hudson River, and all 155 people aboard survive. US Airways contracts with Global BMS of Fort Worth to recover 30,000 personal items from the plane and return them to passengers. After the National Transportation and Safety Board finishes its investigation, Global-BMS gets to work: 1. Aircraft removed from river. Cranes lift the 123-foot long Airbus A320 from the river and place it on a barge. The barge is docked on the New Jersey side of the Hudson.

2. Contents recorded. The interior of the plane, including overhead bins and seatback pockets, is photographed and inventory of all items taken by a Global-BMS crew and FBI agents. Photos and camcorder footage are later used to help match items to onwers.

3. Contents removed, chilled. Luggage and personal items are moved to a 53-foot freezer truck, where they are chilled to 0 degrees to prevent degradation. The truck is driven to Global-BMS operations in Fort Worth.

4. Processing begins. Items are separated by type - soft articles such as clothes and toys, hard goods such as electronic devices and jewelry - and cleaned and sanitized. A special process removes jet fuel. Paper items - passports, diaries, business documents - are freeze-dried. The process is continually audited to keep track of all items.

5. Items returned to owners. Ownership of about 87% of the articles was established. Those items were returned to owners. Images of the remaining 13% were sent to passengers, who can claim them.

Source: Global BMS

***

What an absolutely fantastic ending!!!

karatecatman · Guest

www.cbc.ca/world/story/2009/09/28/sullenberger-hudson-flying-again.html
Pilot in Hudson River landing set to fly again
September 28, 2009

Capt. Chesley Sullenberger, who guided his crippled US Airways jetliner to a safe emergency landing in the Hudson River in January, is set to fly again.

US Airways announced Monday that Sullenberger will return to work as a management pilot and will also join the airline's flight operations safety management team.

It did not give a date for his return to flying status.

Sullenberger, 58, a 29-year veteran of the airline, saved the lives of all 150 passengers and five crew members on the Airbus A320 when the plane struck a flock of geese after taking off from New York's LaGuardia Airport on Jan. 15.

With power knocked out in both engines, Sullenberger and co-pilot Jeffrey Skiles managed to glide the aircraft to a landing in the Hudson River, where rescue boats and ferries plucked the passengers and crew from lifeboats and the plane's wings before it sank in the frigid waters.

US Airways pilot Chesley Sullenberger walked the length of his plane twice after ditching it on the Hudson River, making sure no one was still on board. (Safety Reliability Methods/Associated Press)Sullenberger, nicknamed Sully, said he has missed working and looks forward to his return to the sky.

“The months since January 15 have been very full, and my family and I have had some unforgettable experiences,” Sullenberger said in a statement. “However, I have missed working with my colleagues at US Airways and I am eager to get back in the cockpit with my fellow pilots in the months ahead.

"In my new role, I will continue to be the same kind of advocate for aviation safety that I have been for several decades,” he said.

“We welcome Capt. Sullenberger back to work and are proud to have him flying with us again as a member of the US Airways safety management organization,” CEO Doug Parker said in a news release.

“US Airways is an industry leader when it comes to safety and Sully is an excellent addition to the team.”

karatecatman · Guest

Hero Sullenberger pushes for pilot pay, dignity
Sully Sullenberger is promoting his book, Highest Duty, co-written with the WSJ's Jeff Zaslow. Sullenberger of course is the guy who landed US Airways Flight 1549 in the Hudson after it got crippled by birds. I haven't read the book, but I saw him on the Daily Show last night. I'm glad he's using his platform to talk about working conditions and compensation for his fellow pilots.

The message is: If you want competent guys like me who can handle an emergency, you need to pay us decently and not overwork us. It's a message that needs to be heard, especially in the wake of the shocking revelations about working conditions for regional airline pilots that emerged after Continental Connection Flight 3407 crashed in Buffalo in February. The co-pilot was making $16,254 a year and had worked in coffee shop to pay the bills. From Sully's book:

Over the years, we've lost a good deal of respect from our management, our fellow employees and the general public. The whole concept of being a pilot is diminished, and I worry that safety can be compromised as a result. People used to say that airline pilots were one step below astronauts. Now the joke is: We're one step above bus drivers, but bus drivers have better pensions.

***
Pilot recounts 'miracle on the Hudson' crash landing

Canada AM: Capt. Chesley 'Sully' Sullenberger, author and pilot
The US Airways pilot hailed as the 'Hero on the Hudson' opens up about his famous river landing and his new autobiography.

Since Chesley "Sully" Sullenberger successfully maneuvered a US Airlines flight carrying 155 people to a safe landing on the Hudson River in New York City last January, he has become known as his country's most famous pilot.

Now Sullenberger has published an autobiography to answer some of the many questions he has been asked about that miraculous feat.

Shortly after taking off from LaGuardia Airport, the Airbus A320 Sullenberger was piloting struck a flock of Canada Geese, knocking out both of the plane's engines.

Within a few minutes, he and co-pilot Jeff Skiles had managed to land the plane in the middle of the Hudson River. All 155 people on board survived the crash, most walked away unharmed or with only minor injuries.

The landing became known as the "miracle on the Hudson" and Sullenberger was showered with honours and awards recognizing his courage under pressure.

Yet he's reluctant to call himself a hero.

"I think what I did doesn't quite fit the definition," he told Canada AM on Thursday. "This was forced upon us. It's not a choice I made to run into a burning building and rescue someone. But I think our crew and I performed our jobs very well and we were so grateful for such a good outcome."

In his new autobiography, "Highest Duty," Sullenberger recounts the training he underwent earlier in his career. That, he says, is what allowed him to stay in control when both engines died in the skies above New York City.

The flock of geese that disabled the engines "sounded like a heavy hail storm" when they struck the plane, he said. At least two of the birds entered the right engine. One or two entered the left engine. They also hit the plane's nose and wings.

The engines began making noises "no engines should ever make," he said. Shortly afterwards, the smell of burnt birds entered the cabin.

Still, under the circumstances, Sullenberger managed to remain in control of the plane. After landing it successfully, New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg would dub him "Captain Cool."

But in the book, Sullenberger describes feeling stunned after engines died.

"If you think I wasn't startled then you misunderstand," he said. "We did have a moment of disbelief. I mean the thrust reduction going from climb thrust to almost no thrust was so sudden and complete and symmetrical that we realized this was an unprecedented emergency for us," he said.

Only 208 seconds later, US Airways Flight 1549 was floating safely in the river. The book describes in detail the decisions that Sullenberger made during that crucial time.

"I felt like my entire being, my entire consciousness existed solely to control that flight path and make the most accurate, survivable touch down I could, with the wings exactly level," he said.

Sullenberger had been focused on becoming a pilot since the age of 5, he said, which contributed to his ability to handle the emergency.

"What helped me was that I found my passion so early. Because finding one's passion gives you the impetus to work very hard at it and become expert at it which has great benefits not only for yourself but for society," he said.

***

Sully's memoir: a good in-flight read?
October 27, 2009

The memoir from everyone's favorite airline pilot, Capt. Chelsey "Sully" Sullenberger, was released earlier this month. In "Highest Duty," Sullenberger, working with co-author Jeffery Zaslow, recounts his personal history, seeded with bits of details about January 15, 2009 -- the day he successfully landed US Airways Flight 1459 in the Hudson River.

Sullenberger seems like a serious ("grounded" just isn't the right word) man. It's charming to read about his lifelong fascination with flight, and that he was more comfortable in a cockpit than with his high school classmates. When he finally got around to asking a girl for a date, what did he do? Take her flying, of course.

That wasn't the woman who would become his wife, although he writes about their romance, their daughters, and the challenges they've faced. He also details his pre-family life, training at the Air Force Academy, getting a master's in "industrial psychology (human factors)," becoming a fighter pilot in the late '70s, and even sharing the salary earned in his first commercial airline job in 1980 -- just $200 per week.

But other things fed into his skill as a pilot. He is fascinated with flying history, and shares his knowledge of plane crashes and water landings. He tells of friends he lost to accidents, his own closest call, and explains what it's like to be a volunteer crash site investigator.

So... do you really want to be reading this while flying on a plane?

The bird strike, engine loss and remarkable landing of that Airbus 320 jetliner take up several chapters of the book. They include Sully's perspective, of course, and mix in the stories of some of the passengers -- although he couldn't have known those things then, all their lives were in his (and his co-pilot's) hands. In places, it'll take your breath away.

It even includes transcripts of the cockpit recorder:

Enhanced Ground Proximity Warning System synthetic voice:
"Terrain terrain. Pull up. Pull up. Pull up. Pull up. Pull up. Pull up..."
Sullenberger: We're gonna brace!

Sullenberger writes it was "awful and beautiful at the same time." Indeed -- could you read that at 30,000 feet?

karatecatman · Guest

The latest news is Chartis Insurance, an insurance company is selling the Airbus A320. The Chartis Insurance Auction of the Airbus A320 is scheduled to end at 430pm ET, March 27, 2010. The auction will be managed by Dan Aker of Chartis Insurance.

The Airbus A320-214 was last flown by Capt. Chesley “Sully” Sullengerger. The famous plane that is up for auction had landed safely on the Hudson River, last January 15,2009 after a flock of birds had disabled its engines. The miracle plane become worldwide popular and gained popularity after the pilot saved all 155 passengers on board.

Chartis Insurance, a subsidiary of Insurance giant AIG is holding the auction of the aircraft which is severely water damaged, has 2 missing engines and cannot fly.

NY Post quoted a notice from the Chartis Insurance saying that the aircraft suffered severe bird strike event resulting in water emergency landing. The notice added, Severe water damage throughout airframe. Impact damage to underside of aircraft.”

Chartis Insurance is taking care of the plane which is at a salvage yard in Kearny, New Jersey – it also applied a corrosion inhibitor last summer.

The price and cost of the recycled aircraft varies, so it’s hard to guess the price A320 aircraft would pull at the auction. However it is reported that a similar junked Airbus A310 was sold for $2.6 million dollar.

The Terms of sale for the Airbus: As is/where is. Under equipment damage is the notation destroyed. No engines are included either.

The Chartis Insurance Auction of the Airbus A320 is scheduled to end at 430pm ET, March 27, 2010. The auction will be managed by Dan Aker of Chartis Insurance

karatecatman · Guest

US Airways jet strikes geese, lands safely in N.Y.
Airbus ran into birds on takeoff, was able to return to Rochester with one engine.
Steve Lyttle

Mar. 12, 2010
For the second time in about 14 months, a US Airways jet bound for Charlotte on Thursday struck birds shortly after takeoff.

This time, the jet was able to land safely at Greater Rochester (N.Y.) International Airport, where it had taken off minutes earlier. No injuries were reported.

The result was much less eventful than with US Airways Flight 1549, a Charlotte-bound flight which was landed in the Hudson River after hitting birds during takeoff from LaGuardia Airport in New York City on Jan. 15, 2009.

In Thursday's incident, Flight 1101 struck Canada geese at about 2,000 feet, shortly after the 8:25 a.m. takeoff. Jennifer Hanrahan, a spokeswoman for the airport, said the crew experienced a problem with one of its two engines and returned to an emergency landing at 8:40 a.m.

Airport officials said 129 people were aboard, including a crew of five.

The flight was canceled, and passengers were rebooked on other flights.

Passenger Nicole Dalberth, 20, who was flying to Jamaica with a connecting flight in Charlotte, said the Airbus had taken off and was in the air for a few minutes.

"We heard a loud noise, and you could tell everyone heard it, and then we started to smell something," she told the Associated Press.

Dalberth said flight attendants told passengers what had happened.

She said passengers clapped for the crew when the jet landed.

"It was a little bit scary," passenger Alfred Robles, 36, told the Rochester Democrat-Chronicle newspaper.

"As soon as the pilot took care of the airplane, we were fine."