Thanks for the audio. The whole liveatc scanner enthusiast ring is great.
Have you considered the possibility that 1549 never hit birds? I'm not ATP, air traffic or associated with any segment of the airline industry, so any comment I say should not be construed as credible. But the facts are what they are.
This same aircraft and engine configuration endured a double high pressure compressor stall over Newark three days before landing in the Hudson. The engines: CFM 56-5B with 5BQ software update are made by SNECMA and GE Aviation. GE makes the compressor which have such a dismal track record of surge and stall failure that CFM and EADS issued emergency maintenance bulletins to subject all 56-5Bs to stringent compressor stall margin tests and replace any unit that failed.
In December, 2008, an Air France 320 with CFM 56-5Bs double compressor stalled after takeoff from Tunisia. In November, an Air New Zealand crashed in the Mediterraean off France for unexplained causes. Throughout and prior to 2007 numerous worldwide operators reported CFM 56-5B compressor stalls.
There's a mountain of evidence dating back to CFM-powered British Midlands Flight 092 that crashed just short of Kegworth, destructive vibrations that tore apart the low pressure compressor vanes in one engine before the crew accidentally shutdown the good engine, that CFM engines are over engineered ticking time bombs that sacrifice component weight and durability for power-to-weight and fuel mileage.
Chesley Sullenberger, working the radios at the time, called mayday, stated aircraft callsign and the situation, but forgot to press the PTT. New York La Guardia Departure TRACON never heard the transmission.
1549 was on the same Tower-instructed 360 heading climbing through 2800' to, upon Departure radar contact to 15,000', a 4nm straight line from wheels up, when whatever knocked out both engines happened. Right here renders colliding with birds next to impossible. That's asking two pairs of expert roving eyes to fly straight in to what they would've seen from miles off.
Sullenberger's hesitant next transmission, with the 'aah' and 'uh' is a pilot bewildered by being instructed to fly heading 270 in a direction away from standard EOSID. Asked to fly north of Manhattan instead of a 180 rebound around ORCHY back to rwy 22. He complies with the TRACON instruction while asserting his desire to return to La Guardia, though too late.
The mystery is where the "Hit birds" came from?
Waterfowl almost never fly at 2800' no less in a skein. And even if they did, a seasoned crew would have a clear line of sight at any skein well above its typical regime and its sight and emergent situtation unmistakable. Moreover, even if did defy all odds and hit a flock, it wouldn't knock out both engines at the exact same time and what happened.
Only electronics (or manual pilot input but the not the case here) do this. And the only factor that would cause ECM to shutdown the #2 engine simultaneously with #1 is sensors detecting grevious mechanical trouble, such as the GE Aviation designed HPC disintegrating in midair after application of low power setting, exactly as the emergency bulletins warned of.