US AIRWAYS 1549

Being an airline pilot, I am used to friends and family calling me up after an aviation accident and asking lots of questions. I’ll summarize a few thoughts of mine on Flight 1549.

First of all, I am proud that Captain Sullenberger is being seen as a hero, he is one. He did a fantastic job working with his crew to bring about a safe conclusion to this accident. What worries me is the media’s lack of acknowledgement of  the entire crew. One would think from most news reports that Captain Sullenberger pulled off this tremendous feat single handed. Ask the Captain, he would tell you otherwise. The A320 is flown with a crew of five: Captain, First Officer, and three Flight Attendants. Captains and First Officers usually alternate between Flying Pilot and Non-Flying Pilot duties on each leg of a day’s flight schedule. The Flying Pilot is in charge of manipulating the flight controls (actually ‘flying’ the airplane), while the Non-Flying Pilot is in charge of radio communications, navigation, and running the checklists. Captain Sullenberger started out as the Non-Flying Pilot for the flight from LaGuardia to Charlotte, with his First Officer acting as the Flying Pilot. After the engines failed, Captain Sullenberger assumed the Flying Pilot duties while continuing communications with ATC, and his First Officer became extremely busy with the Non-Flying Pilot duties of running all the emergency checklists, attempting to restart the damaged engines, and configuring the aircraft for a water ditching.  The Flight Attendants would now have had only a couple of minutes to prepare themselves and the passengers for this water landing. Enough accolades cannot be bestowed upon them for getting the emergency exits open, checking for proper slide deployment, and evacuating 150 passengers with their life vests on from an aircraft rapidly filling with freezing cold water.

I’ve been asked about the time frame that this incident would have occured in. The exact details won’t be released until after a proper investigation has been completed, so I will use some rounded-off numbers for sake of discussion. The collision of this aircraft with a flock of birds happened minutes after takeoff. The plane would have been accelerating from a take-off speed of about 150 mph to an initial climb speed of about 200 mph. Think of the damage one large bird would do to your car at 50 mph. A flock of large birds at 200 mph would create extensive damage. While modern jet engines are tested and certified to continue producing usable thrust after ingesting a couple of large birds, flying into a flock of them can prove to be more than the engines can handle. When all engines fail on an aircraft, it does not just fall out of sky, but it becomes a glider. A modern airliner has a glide ratio of about 20:1, meaning for every foot of altitude it can glide about twenty feet horizontally. If the engines failed at 3,000 feet above the ground, then the aircraft could glide for 60,000 feet, or approximately ten miles. If the aircraft lost 1,000 feet of altitude per minute during its glide, then it remained aloft for about 3 minutes after the engines failed. If the aircraft was gliding at 180 mph, then it was travelling at 3 miles per minute. Travelling 3 miles per minute for about 3 minutes brings us back to an approximate 10 mile glide.

So what options did the Captain have at this point? Return to LaGuardia, proceed to a different airport (Teterboro was an option), or land in the Hudson River. Attempting to return to the airport of departure is a very difficult maneuver in an aircraft with all engines failed. The distance required to execute a 180+ degree turn and then travel back to the airport would most likely use up more than the 10 mile glide distance they had. Plus they would be turning back into departing traffic and landing with a tailwind, which would use up much more runway than normal. Landing at another airport not previously planned for is also a very difficult maneuver. While handling a disabled airliner and running all the emergency checklists, it would be difficult to have the time to determine if the runways were long enough to handle your aircraft or if the runways were aligned with your direction of travel. But the trickiest part of a decision to land a glider at any airport is the fact you have only one shot at it. If you come up a little short, there is no power from the engines to stretch out your glide. In the densely populated New York/New Jersey border area, there is no room for “coming up a little short”. With only a very short time frame to make it, Captain Sullenberger came up with the right decision; a long, wide, flat, unpopulated landing spot for his crippled aircraft, the Hudson River. He and his crew pulled off a text book example of an emergency landing and evacuation. And the rapid response of the water ferries and emergency crews prevented any further injury from exposure to the 35 degree water and 20 degree air. They might have been just doing their jobs, but they all were heroes that day.