19 January,2009 08:38 AM IST | | Agencies
The birds flew majestically, in perfect formation, and the co-pilot saw them coming.
For a moment, it looked like they would pass beneath US Airways Flight 1549, but when Capt Chesley B Sullenberger looked up, they were there in his windscreen. Big. Dark brown. Lots of them.
His first instinct was to duck.
Then there were thumps, a burning smell, and silence as both jet engines cut out.
For a moment, the Airbus A320 hung in the sky 3,000 feet above, its engines knocked so completely dead that one flight attendant said it sounded like being in a library.
Investigators provided this dramatic new description on Saturday of what unfolded on the flight in the five brief minutes between its takeoff from LaGuardia Airport on Thursday and its splashdown in the Hudson River.
The plane had been in the air for only 90 seconds when disaster struck. Air traffic controllers hadn't picked up the birds on their radar screens and were still giving climbing instructions when the pilot radioed that something had gone very wrong.
"Aaah, this is Cactus 1549," he said. "We lost thrust in both engines. We are turning back toward LaGuardia."
On the cockpit voice recorder, "the sound of thumps and a rapid decrease in engine sounds" could be heard, said National Transportation Safety Board member Kitty Higgins. The black box confirmed that both engines lost power simultaneously, she said.
The pilot announced a new destination within moments. LaGuardia was out. So was Teterboro Airport in New Jersey.
Sullenberger reasoned that his jet was "too low, too slow" and near too many tall buildings to reach any airport. And heading for Teterboro would mean risking a "catastrophic" crash in a populated neighborhood.
"We can't do it," he told air traffic control. "We're gonna be in the Hudson."
Higgins recounted those radio transmissions and gave a detailed summary of Sullenberger's testimony to the investigation team on Saturday and Sunday. She also recounted the NTSB's interview with the plane's first officer, Jeff Skiles, and three flight attendants.
Their accounts illustrated how quickly things deteriorated during the flight, and laid out the split-second command decisions that ultimately ensured that everyone aboard the plane survived.
The flight was supposed to have been the last leg of a four-trip day. The crew had begun the day in Pittsburgh, flown to Charlotte, N.C., then to LaGuardia, and were to head back to Charlotte in the afternoon. They got departure clearance at 3:25 p.m., and a minute later the jet was 700 feet in the air, heading north.
The birds came out of nowhere, Higgins said. They hadn't been on the radar screen of the air traffic controller who approved the departure, although other radar facilities later confirmed that their path intersected the jet as it climbed past 2,900 feet.
Back in the cabin, the passengers instantly knew something was wrong. They heard a thump, then eerie silence. A haze hung in the air. The flight attendants smelled something metallic burning.
"I think we hit a bird," said a passenger in first class.
In the cockpit, Sullenberger took over flying from Skiles, who had handled the takeoff, but had less experience in the Airbus.
While the pilot quickly levelled off the plane to keep it from stalling and thought about where to land, Skiles kept trying to restart the engines. He also began working through a three-page list of procedures for an emergency landing.
Sullenberger made a sweeping left turn and took the gliding jet over the George Washington Bridge, and scanned the river, his best bet.
