US Airways flight skirted many disastrous scenarios

Data recorder shows engines quit together

The National Transportation Safety Board yesterday recovered the black box data and voice recorders of US Airways Airbus A320 after the plane was lifted from the Hudson River. The recorders should help investigators determine the cause of the crash. (Ramin Talaie/ Getty Images)

NEW YORK - Before it became an unforgettable story of luck and heroism, US Airways Flight 1549 was on course to be a catastrophe. In five minutes of flight, the stricken jetliner sprinted past one nightmare scenario after another.

The plane skirted skyscrapers and threaded through crowded airspace, horrifying spectators on the streets below. With no working engines, it had to clear the heavily traveled George Washington Bridge. Its landing strip was a stretch of the Hudson River full of commuter ferries. Had it not splash-landed in the river, the plane could have gone down in densely packed neighborhoods in New York City or northern New Jersey.

The abundance of catastrophic scenarios was clearly on the mind of the pilot, who told controllers that the jet was "too low, too slow" and near too many tall buildings to reach any airport.

"It was an amazing confluence," said Karlene Roberts, codirector of the Center for Catastrophic Risk Management at the University of California, Berkeley. "So many things could have gone wrong that didn't."

The run of good luck on the flight will be examined further by investigators as they inspect the jet wreckage for more clues about how a flock of birds managed to disable both engines and send the jet on its frightening obstacle course over a city of 8 million people. The flight data recorder shows both engines lost power simultaneously, investigators said yesterday.

The airliner was hoisted Saturday from the ice-laden current and placed on a barge, its two "black box" data recorders sent to investigators in Washington.

National Transportation Safety Board spokesman Peter Knudson said investigators hoped to move the barge and plane yesterday.

Before that could be done, he said, fuel had to be drained from the tank in the plane's right wing.

Investigators interviewed the pilots on Saturday, and what emerged was a harrowing account of the split-second decisions they made in avoiding a crash.

It started minutes after the plane left LaGuardia Airport Thursday for Charlotte, N.C. While bird strikes are common, commercial jet engines are fortified against them. They seldom disable an engine, let alone two. Archie Dickey, who teaches aviation environmental science at Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University, puts the chance of birds crippling both engines at less than 1 percent.

While the pilot quickly leveled the plane off after the bird strike to keep it from stalling and thought about where to land, the copilot kept trying to restart the engines. He also began working through a three-page list of procedures for an emergency landing. Normally, those procedures begin at 35,000 feet.

This time, he started at 3,000 feet - somewhere over the Bronx, a borough of more than 1 million people.

The pilot, Chesley B. Sullenberger, could hardly have been better prepared.

The 58-year-old former fighter pilot was named best aviator in his class at the Air Force Academy, had flown for US Airways for 29 years and mastered glider flying. He also has investigated air disasters, even studying how airline crews behave in a crisis.

His plane was crippled over a city still haunted by the devastation wrought by the hijacked planes that brought down the World Trade Center towers on Sept. 11, 2001.

Sullenberger headed for the river, warning passengers to brace for impact and telling air traffic controllers simply: "We're gonna be in the Hudson."

Ahead was the George Washington Bridge - the graceful span that carries roughly 108 million vehicles a year between Manhattan and New Jersey. Though quickly losing altitude, the plane made it over the bridge, which rises as much as 600 feet above the water.

"When you saw the bridge, and the bridge was right underneath you, you knew something was wrong," recalled passenger Dave Sanderson, 47, of Charlotte.

While a water landing seemed the safest bet, it also carried particular risks. The goal would have been to set the plane down gently, to keep it from breaking apart and sinking rapidly.

Drag a wing tip into a wave, and the plane may overturn, said Michele Summers Halleran, a former Hawaiian Airlines and seaplane pilot and associate professor of aeronautics science at Embry-Riddle.

If the landing gear is left down, the wheels will catch in the water and likely flip the aircraft. Pilots also need to try to avoid plowing headlong into waves that could tear up the fuselage, she said. Luckily for Flight 1549, the Hudson was fairly calm.

Sullenberger pulled off the landing in textbook fashion, though authorities say many factors, including communication among the pilots and flight attendants, were as important as sheer skill.