The Flight 1549 story has all the right stuff
We can’t get enough of this story. It contains the perfect balance of suspense and joyful resolution: harrowing danger combined with rescue from what had looked to be certain and deadly harm.
These ingredients are more ordinarily the stuff of cinema than reality. And yet this was reality, with the photos and eyewitnesses to prove it. How often is disaster averted this dramatically and this satisfyingly?
The ingredients start with an everyday situation with which we can all identify: traveling by airplane. The culprit: neither human error nor human malevolence, nor even weather—but birds, a la Hitchcock/duMaurier. The hero: a pilot with a face and a resume sent to order from central casting, only better. Co-heroes: boat captains and passengers whose ordinary day was interrupted by the extraordinary.
The outcome: perfect. Maximum relief after maximum drama.
And the wonderfulness of the story is not hurt at all by the obvious contrast with another day, when New Yorkers watched another airliner coming in much too low—that time, with nightmare consequences and from a nightmare cause.
It’s always good to have an old, grey-haired pilot.
One of the byproducts is that it makes America seem, I mean people around the world must wonder how can America be so fascinating and fortunate, so lucky (or blessed) so capably of transforming it’s image — not just with this near catastrophe but also with the presidential election and how that changes the face and thus the image of America, at last to ordinary people around the world, I mean as superficial as it is, and it shouldn’t diminish the suspicion we should have of those that make much of the superficial, but nevertheless … I don’t mean to be insensitive to the seriousness of what the passengers and families went through. I’m so happy this wasn’t something that could haave been much much worse.
It seems the A320 is equipped with a ditching pushbutton which, when actuated, will close all thru-hull valves which are below the flotation line, thereby helping to keep water out.
Question for the aviators on this site: is this a common feature on modern transport aircraft? (Someone mentioned a similar feature on the MD11.)
Great sense of responsibility on someone’s part, to implement a feature for such an unlikely eventuality.
I’m sure you remember Sen. Proxmire and his Golden Fleece awards.
I recall one: millions spent on a cannon …
that shoots chickens!
Even the first time I heard about it, I knew it was so ridiculous that there must be more to it.
It shot chickens into aircraft, to simulate high-speed collisions with birds. Not so dumb as it first sounded.
Most other Fleece programs were far worse. Great real story.
The difference between 1812 Overture and Rites of Spring
Many modern airliners have a form of the “ditch switch” It closes various vents and what not in the unlikely event that it is needed. To my knowledge, though, none have really mattered, as sucessful ditchings of swept-wing jet aircraft are few. The USAirways A320 was ditched in calm seas in VFR conditions, which, coupled with the pilots’s skill, resulted in an upright and intact hull. Very nice work, Capt!
David F. Most commercial airliners have a ditching position on the pressurization panel. Interesting thing is to learn if they actually remembered to use it, since ditching is not a regularly practiced emergency procedure, and I doubt that they had time to go through the emergency checklist.
A little story on the chicken cannon. Told to me as true when I was working for British Aeropsace–but who knows. Anyway a company was trying to certify an engine design. But every time they fired the chicken into the engine, it failed the test. They finally called in a consultant (American) and went through the test in his presence. He told them it would be a good idea to thaw the frozen chicken before the test. Problem solved.
The most wonderful side of this to me is the conduct of the passengers-cooperative, assisting others, pretty calm. I’ve seem the same response in other crises. The truth is far-removed from the typical panicked, self-preserving at any cost images Hollywood gives us in their disaster films.
I was stationed in New York with the Coast Guard for several year, including September 2001. Those very same NY Waterways boats, Circle Line boats and fireboats were the same ones that helped transport hundreds of thousands of New Yorkers from lower Manhattan after the terrorist attacks.
But the “heroes” aren’t just the personnel onboard. Circle Line X and Circle Line XI were previous landing craft used by Allied forces at Normandy. Yes, Normandy 1944. They had ramps on each side of the bow for deployment. It’s something the Circle Line owners are quiet about, but they are as safe and sound as the day their hulls were first laid.
Those private commercial captains were the best partners the Coast Guard could ever ask for.
Everyday heroes, September 11th, January 15th and anytime the call for help goes out.