Friday, January 16, 2009

Can a plane land on water and have survivors? Of course it can!

Photo from grego! over at Flickr
I never ever truly believed, even after thousands of safety briefings on aeroplanes, that a 800,000 pound structure of metal, glass and human passengers could actually land on water, in tact and with people (somewhat) calmly swimming away with the aid of life jackets and slides that turn into life rafts. Now I believe! The pilot of US Airways flight 1549 La Guardia to Charlotte is an absolute genius and legend. More here care of the NY Times.

Another photo of the Hudson River crash is below.
us-air-hudson-full.jpg
This one I found at the alleyinsider. Attributed to jkrums who was on a ferry that rescued people


Update - here is another photo. This time of the flight tracker from FlightAware.com showing flight 1549 stopping in the middle of the Hudson River. Found it on Crunchgear.
wow2
Update - want another angle. Check on this interactive map of the route and crash in the Hudson. Hat tip to Kevin at Travolution.

Update - much watch animation video including voice exchange between the tower and plan (and flying geese)!!! (thanks to TechCrunch)



11 comments:

Aaron Spence said...

I'm with you, I previously always figured the Fightclub movie version of the flight safety card was more realistic.

http://www.foxmovies.com/fightclub/flightcard_med.jpg

I have had interesting conversations with others sitting in the exit rows though. On some planes you'd need near superhuman strength to open the exit window as they picture it.

Aaron Spence
http://panedia.com

Anonymous said...

i like the way they all look calm

Anonymous said...

Flock me that is a bad day at work

WildBron said...

Look at the flight duration in the table on the page with flight track.

A brillant example of emotionless computer stable-mnding:

"fligh duration 0:06"

Computer was calm, cllected and did his job like The Pilot did too.

The Absence of Alternatives said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Anonymous said...

Tim, as one of the early Twitter adopter in the travel industry, you forgot to mention that the photo was sent to Twitter and was instantly seen around the world (43K+ views and counting). It has been cited as a prime example of "Citizen journalism" (just don't tell the professionals...) and the power of Tweet. Love your blog. btw, I have been waiting for you to comment on Southwest and their Tweet. :-)

Tim Hughes said...

@aaron - thanks for the fightclub link. Priceless

@Anon - you're absolutely right. The photo jkrums has gone around the world and back again. What is the Southwest tweet? I missed it?

Anonymous said...

The 2nd photo shows why it's always better to fly business or first class!

Anonymous said...

I'm going to be interviewing @jkrums this week and I'm letting twitter users pose the questions.

Leave your questions here: http://tinyurl.com/askjanis
OR
fire them at me: http://www.twitter.com/thirdsectorlab

Tim Hughes said...

@Frequent Flyer - the "pointy end" is now officially renamed the "floaty end"

@Ross - fantastic. Please put a link the comments and I'll update the post when done.

Unknown said...

Be glad that the cabin crew did not open ALL the exits as instructed in standard evacuation procedures. Door sills at the rear of the plane were well under water.