US Airways A320 crashes into Hudson River

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US Airways A320 crashes into Hudson River

#257666 by willd
15 Jan 2009, 22:02
Currently breaking on Sky News. Click Here

An A320 flying from LGA to Charlotte has crash landed into the Hudson River.

Seems that the a/c had a bird strike on take off at LGA and was attempting to return to the airport.

The aircraft has not broken up, it is currently slowly sinking to the bottom of the Hudson.

As the plane is still floating hopefully everyone will survive.

#704824 by dan87027
15 Jan 2009, 22:16
Fingers crossed no-one is badly hurt.

#704825 by Guest
15 Jan 2009, 22:17
Just watching it now Ian on Sky News, Extraordinary footage of the aircraft in the Hudson. It seems that all passengers have survived.

#704826 by slinky09
15 Jan 2009, 22:18
Watching live on http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/3032619/#22887506

Apparently all safe, 146 pax 5 crew, hit geese, both engines out, landed in river. Incredible crew performance again and thank god all safe!

#704827 by clarkeysntfc
15 Jan 2009, 22:26
No word of exaggeration... landing that aircraft on the water and it remaining intact is nothing short of INCREDIBLE.

#704830 by maz
15 Jan 2009, 22:37
Excellent news about all the passengers and crew geting off the plane. Amazing. Sounds like a great pilot.

#704832 by DragonLady
15 Jan 2009, 23:10
The footage of the passengers standing on the wings whilst the plane is floating is surreal.Great news that all pax and crew are safe.

#704833 by n/a
15 Jan 2009, 23:30
Geese are at war with mankind.

GJ

#704834 by aft1981
15 Jan 2009, 23:44
Great news everyone is ok, and great work by the pilots and crew.

This may be unnecessarily paranoid of me, but I always feel 'safer' getting on a VS flight, one of those reasons being all their planes have 4 engines. Odds on evil geese sabotaging all 4 engines is pretty slim me thinks?!

#704835 by Scrooge
15 Jan 2009, 23:47
Jeez...great job by the pilots [y]

#704837 by pjh
16 Jan 2009, 00:20
A tribute to the crew and the aircraft itself.

Now who's going to pay more attention to the lifejacket demo? The Firth of Forth plays a big part in the route into Edinburgh...

Paul

#704845 by Scrooge
16 Jan 2009, 08:04
link to some great pictures.

Great video here

Great little link here you just need to set the correct date and time, take off was at 15.35

A great job done by all.

Now a question for the anoraks

With both engines gone and the ditch button pushed, does the APU kick on automatically to provide some sort of power for the control surfaces ?

#704846 by mcuth
16 Jan 2009, 08:21
Amazing to have all pax & crew off safely - top job all round [y]

Cheers
Michael

#704847 by Neil
16 Jan 2009, 08:22
The pictures really are amazing and the pilot really did an amazing job. I 100% agree with Paul too, I will be paying a lot more attention to the life jacket demo in future.

Neil

#704850 by willd
16 Jan 2009, 08:57
An amazing bit of flying especially given that the science clearly indicates the chances of a ditching being successful are small. The difficulty is keeping the aircraft level so that the wings do not clip the sea and thus make the aircraft cartwheel (as was seen with the Mombassa crash in the 70's).

As others have said this is a great example of when watching the procedure can make the difference.

Scrooge I believe the APU provides some sort of power, all be it very limited. I seem to recall an episode of Air Crash Investigation where both engines went out on an Air Transat A330 and the APU kicked in to provide limited rudder and wing flap movement. Does that answer your question?

Some of the news report were fairly interesting. Fox were originally claiming it was an Embrarer and CBS were even claiming it was an A380! I felt like ringing up and showing my inner geek!

This is a very interesting, all be it long, video on the Thomsonfly a/c that had a bird strike a couple of years ago. If this was multiple bird strike you can see how it couldn't make it back to LGA. Also you can see how much the pilot had to work to land with only 1 engine, imagine doing it with no engines and on water! Click Here

#704852 by Scrooge
16 Jan 2009, 09:18
Actually the plane and the software guys did an amazing job, push a button and all the vents etc seal, figure where you want to ditch then pull back on the side stick and let the computers fly you in. I'm not taking anything away from the PIC, FO and cabin crew, but airbus deserves our congratulations as well.

#704858 by willd
16 Jan 2009, 10:43
quote:Originally posted by Scrooge
Actually the plane and the software guys did an amazing job, push a button and all the vents etc seal, figure where you want to ditch then pull back on the side stick and let the computers fly you in. I'm not taking anything away from the PIC, FO and cabin crew, but airbus deserves our congratulations as well.


Yeh Airbus do deserve a pat on the back.

One wonders what will happen to the aircraft? I wonder if it will fly again (quite possibly seeing as everything is fine) or if they will use it for spares?

#704861 by McMaddog
16 Jan 2009, 11:09
quote:Originally posted by willd
Scrooge I believe the APU provides some sort of power, all be it very limited. I seem to recall an episode of Air Crash Investigation where both engines went out on an Air Transat A330 and the APU kicked in to provide limited rudder and wing flap movement. Does that answer your question?

I believe iun the case of that one, the plane ran out of jet fuel hence the APU wouldn't run either. With no fuel the Ram Air Turbine automatically deployed to provide electricity for displays and some control surfaces.

#704866 by willd
16 Jan 2009, 11:50
quote:Originally posted by McMaddog
[quote]Originally posted by willd
Scrooge I believe the APU provides some sort of power, all be it very limited. I seem to recall an episode of Air Crash Investigation where both engines went out on an Air Transat A330 and the APU kicked in to provide limited rudder and wing flap movement. Does that answer your question?

I believe iun the case of that one, the plane ran out of jet fuel hence the APU wouldn't run either. With no fuel the Ram Air Turbine automatically deployed to provide electricity for displays and some control surfaces.



[oo] Now you mention that I recall that.

Back to the US 320, have a little read on pprune and looking at various pictures, it now appears that the Port engine has in fact fallen off the aircraft. Hence why it stayed afloat for so long.

PPrune members are also asking serious questions about the lack of lifejackets. Looking at pictures more dont have them on than have them on.

#704903 by Scrooge
16 Jan 2009, 18:19
No quite true, if you look at the track of the flight (posted in one of my posts) it's pretty clear that the PIC traded altitude for speed, the flight reached 3200 ft and was airborne for just over 3 minutes.

The reason for asking about the APU and does it kick on automatically is that...

1. At the low airspeeds the plane was at the ram turbine is not putting out that much power, batteries can make up for part of that.

2. Once the magic 'ditching in water' button is pushed the ram turbine is stowed, so it produces no power !

The chances of the plane or any part of it flying again are remote at best, salt water plus aircraft are not a good match, throw in the fact that it was a 1999 vintage aircraft and chances are it will be an insurance right off.

#704914 by JAT74L
17 Jan 2009, 01:07
The VFR conditions and calm water combined with a flight deck crew who rapidly evaulated their options and put the plane in the drink with perfect precision (does the software really do this for them?) has ended up with this 'miracle' result. Then once on the water the cabin crew (and passengers) have really done the biz in getting out quickly.

It's taken me longer to type this than it took the plane to go from engine failure to ditching. . .

Regards

John

#704915 by n/a
17 Jan 2009, 03:12
quote:Originally posted by Scrooge
No quite true, if you look at the track of the flight (posted in one of my posts) it's pretty clear that the PIC traded altitude for speed, the flight reached 3200 ft and was airborne for just over 3 minutes.

The reason for asking about the APU and does it kick on automatically is that...

1. At the low airspeeds the plane was at the ram turbine is not putting out that much power, batteries can make up for part of that.

2. Once the magic 'ditching in water' button is pushed the ram turbine is stowed, so it produces no power !

The chances of the plane or any part of it flying again are remote at best, salt water plus aircraft are not a good match, throw in the fact that it was a 1999 vintage aircraft and chances are it will be an insurance right off.


Write you are!

GJ

#704916 by Scrooge
17 Jan 2009, 03:48
Thanks GJ [ii]

quote:Originally posted by JAT74L
does the software really do this for them?

Regards

John


I have been reading conflicting reports on that, on one side you have the planes computers working under direct law, where the plane just takes the pilots commands and does what he asks, the other is the alternate-law where the pilot keeps the plan level and pulls back on the side stick, the computers will not let the plane stall.

From what I am reading it comes down to if the RAT was deployed or not, if it was then the system would go into direct law and the pilots were hand flying the thing in.

We will have to wait and see what the reports say.

Either way a good job done by the pilots.
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