New York – It was a wintry Thursday afternoon in January, and New York City had turned inwards on itself against the cold. On Manhattan’s West Side, a few people who happened to be looking towards the Hudson River caught a glimpse of an airline accident that initially brought back memories of another case, eight years earlier, of aeroplanes crashing into the heart of New York.
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It had snowed that morning, but the skies had largely cleared.
In the cabin of US Airways Flight 1549, the flight attendant Doreen Welsh was sitting in the aft galley strapped into a forward-facing jump seat with a view up the aisle towards the front. The other two attendants, Donna Dent and Sheila Dail, were sitting side by side just behind the cockpit, facing aft. They felt the thumps and heard the engines wind down. Dail whispered: “What was that?” Dent answered: “Probably a bird strike.”
The cabin turned eerily silent. An engine slowly clanked. A trace of smoke filtered into the cabin, accompanied by a burning smell.
Up in the cockpit, Captain Chesley Sullenberger assumed that the scent was coming through the pressurisation ducts and that it was the smell of burning birds. Passengers behind the wing saw large flames trailing from the left engine. The flight attendants did not see the flames. From their seats, they could not see outside. They assumed that the aeroplane would be returning to LaGuardia airport.
In the back of the cabin, Welsh unstrapped herself from her seat and went forward quickly, checking the overhead lockers for the source of the smoke. When she returned to her seat, she strapped herself in again. She assured the passengers in the back that everything would be fine. As yet there had been no word from the cockpit. The pilots were busy.
When the aeroplane hit the birds, it was climbing with its nose pitched up 10 degrees above the horizon. As the engines wound down, the deceleration was dramatic. Sullenberger gently tried to restore thrust to the engines. They were still turning, but at very low speed. It was possible that with the standard engine-start igniters he could relight the fires. He said, “Ignition start,” and rotated a knob. The igniters began to click, but the engines refused to respond. They simply were not meant to swallow geese and survive.
The right engine had taken the worst hit. The left engine was to some degree alive. The co-pilot, Jeffrey Skiles, said: “Got no power? Try the other one.” He did. There was nothing. The situation was critical.
“Got any ideas?” Sullenberger asked.
Skiles had the cool to say: “Actually not.”
The plane did not plummet towards the Earth, as headlines were to suggest later. Indeed, it descended rather gently. The Hudson River stretched ahead, beckoning from the far side of the George Washington Bridge. The surface looked smooth. The plane did not have enough altitude to make it back to a runway — so Sullenberger decided to try for the river.
Sullenberger made his announcement to the cabin. He said: “This is the captain. Brace for impact.” The flight attendants started shouting: “Brace! Brace! Heads down! Stay down!” Because they could not see outside, they did not know that the plane was over the Hudson and headed for the water. Their ignorance did not matter: an impact was imminent.
Great Article!
I don’t care what anybody says, that pilot has incredible skills and this was an act of G-d!!!! Thanks Hashem and Sully!
an airplane loses power in midair and everyone in it survives.
what part of the article raises doubt as to whether it was a miracle?
of course this was a miracle this is an attempt by one writer and the ny times to refute the existence of hashem
as we say in the unesaneh tokef who will live . me yichye
the entire confluence of computer technology and aircraft design along with human courage and heroism IS the miracle in this story.
Seems to be more of a “ra-ra” story about Airbus than of the greatness of what happened. Truth be told, I am sure a Boeing would have done the same.
Of course these gruba goyim dont know that the whole thing was YAD HASHEM!!
All about the great FLY BY WIRE. Maybe, but isn’t that what is now suspected of causing fatal accidents in Toyotas????
Everything is Yad Hashem. We can’t question that. That doesn’t mean that there was not a human’s skill in the process. How exactly Yad Hashem is part of the human’s choice is the “Yediya – bechirah” question which has many answers, most of which are difficult to comprehend.
The use of the word “miracle” here is unrelated to the true concepts of Nais versus Tevah. It is used to denote a departure from the normal sequence of events. This is as much Yad Hashem and true miracles, we just cannot explain those with the rules of science we understand.
And, yes, Sully well deserves the credit he has been given for doing what he did. HKB”H was with him all the way.
What I remember is that this event occurred during Operation Cast Lead. I know that so many people were davening with great kavanah during that time, and taking on extra obligations, and full of thoughts of Hashem. I was not surprised that this was an easy landing. Yidden, please see how great is our effect on the world when we daven from the heart. (Yes, I need to hear myself say that as well.) Yes, it was a miracle, and yes, I will always think that the reason is that we were davening differently at that point in time. Let it not take a crisis to get it back to that level.
i guess that would depend what a miracle means? it does not defy any laws of a nature but there are 100’s of different outcomes that would be worse.
Whether it was a miracle, its all how you define “miracle.” By some definitions, everything is a miracle. By some its things that have an exceedingly low chance of occuring. By some its only when something happens outside of the laws of nature.
I spoke to a pilot he said there were so many factors that had to be perfect for the landing to go as smooth as it did for one like the wind. Everything was perfect that day for the landing if some of the factors have been off it would of crashed into the water and broken apart so of course it was a miracle
Neh – not a miracle at all. It’s “maasim beChol Yom”. As a matter of fact, Kennedy Airport is gonna build a little terminal on the Hudson to handle the increased demand of planes to land there.
Yad elokim.
One can always be skeptical. We have that choice.
There are many different types of miracles that Hashem performs. Most of them, (and the greatest ones) are embedded within nature. Since we are given free choice, we are not “forced” to see them. If we do indeed want to see them, we need to “open our eyes”.
There is a famous classical joke that alludes to this idea:
a guy is desperately looking for a parking spot in Manhattan. He is late to a meeting and is at risk of being fired. After tirelessly looking for half an hour, he looks up to heaven and says “G-d, if you give me a parking spot, I promise to follow every one of your commandments with utmost detail!”. Just as he finishes saying this, a car pulls out, leaving a parking spot right in front of him. The man quickly looks up to heaven again and says “G-d, nevermind, I already found a spot!”
The idea is, that when miracles happen, you need TO SEE THAT THEY ARE INDEED A MIRACLE.
The fact that you breath is a miracle.
The fact that you see is a miracle.
The fact that you are reading this RIGHT NOW is a miracle!
Let’s not fool ourselves. G-d runs the world.
If this NY Times shill had been on the plane he would be talking differently.