HoodaThunk?

While moving from 1 meeting to another this afternoon, I noted a small news item indicating that a “small aircraft” had crashed into the Hudson River near Manhattan. That’s certainly something to attract my interest but I had no time to pursue it. When I got home this evening, I found out that the event was much larger. A US Airways Airbus was reportedly struck by birds while on climb-out from New York Laguardia and had to set down in an emergency landing. Lacking any other option, the crew brought the plane down on the water:

A US Airways jet crashed Thursday in the Hudson River between Manhattan and New Jersey after a flock of birds apparently struck its engines — but all 155 people on board are thought to have survived, and the pilot is being hailed as a hero.

Passengers were sent fleeing into the icy, 35-degree waters when the Airbus 320 went down near 48th Street in Manhattan shortly after taking off from LaGuardia Airport.

The picture of the aircraft in the water is simply stunning to anyone who knows aircraft of this size. In spite of appearances, they are fragile machines. The fuselage of a commercial airliner is prone to buckling and tearing off when subjected to any kind of stresses outside that you’d expect in the air. For it to come to a landing on water and be, to all appearance, just fine is nothing less than astounding.

As with any aviation accident, the NTSB will need to run the full investigation and report on the findings. At this time it is believed that the aircraft encountered a flight of birds while climbing to cruise altitude. The birds were apparently a large species, possibly geese, and they were ingested by the aircraft’s engines. Both engines would have sustained damage and would likely not have produced enough thrust to keep them in the air.

I’ll keep an eye on this one and follow up with whatever I find.