Plane headed to CLT from LGA down in Hudson River

[flygirltammy]

Oh, I was hoping there would be a clip. Birds taking out both engines on takeoff and ditching in the water and only 1 serious injury. Wow. Amazing job by the pilots! I want to be like them when I grow up 
I'll look around on some other pilot sites to see if I can find a clip.

[Dimitris]

Departure route out of LGA.  Looks like the possible bird strike may have happened over the Bronx park.

http://www4.passur.com/lga.html


Change time to 15:26 and click start.  Click on aircraft to see altitude.

[Hollis]

The flight was US Airways Flt 1549, an Airbus 320,  to Charlotte, NC.
Departed LaGuardia at 3:26 p.m. EST on 15 January, 2009.

[Аэрофлот Jr.]

any reports of the birds surviving the impact? 

lol not yet

[r22pilot]

It's now being said that the pilot (one of them at least) has over 19,000 hours flight experience, including time in an F-4 Phantom. Simply amazing!

[darry2385]

a webcam looking at the USS Intrepid caught a few images of the crash. 

http://www.earthcam.com/usa/newyork/intrepid/

click the link, then click on the "Hall of Fame" tab right under the bow of the ship in the banner image.

[kea001]

Departure route out of LGA.  Looks like the possible bird strike may have happened over the Bronx park.

http://www4.passur.com/lga.html


Change time to 15:26 and click start.  Click on aircraft to see altitude.

N461SA had a front row seat. 

Imagine being in a helicopter at 800 ft. near ground zero and you see an Airbus coming down at you.

[PC12FO]

NOPE BUT I CANT WAIT TO HEAR THE AUDIO CLIP,BUT THOSE PILOTS DID A WONDERFUL JOB THRU THE WHOLE PHASE OF THE FLIGHT DOWN TO THE WATER

[Chananya Freedman]

Did the helicopter pilot try to help?  Is there any way he could have?

Chananya

[kea001]

Did the helicopter pilot try to help?  Is there any way he could have?

Chananya

I just noticed that Passur might not be that accurate. It's got two aircraft with the same tail number.

[Аэрофлот Jr.]

I wanna be a pilot like that in the future 

[rsbaker]

On a completely unrelated topic, from your "photo", it looks as though Dustin Hoffman could be a dead ringer for Dr. Strangelove or Rummie!

[KSYR-pjr]

Departure route out of LGA.  Looks like the possible bird strike may have happened over the Bronx park.

If that track is correctly depicting all aircraft, there was a helicopter flying upriver at 1,000 feet that looks as if was on a collision course with the ailing Airbus when it turned over Manhattan to get out of the way. 

edit - I missed the above posts about this.  Sorry for that.

[RatOmeter]

Departure route out of LGA.  Looks like the possible bird strike may have happened over the Bronx park.

If that track is correctly depicting all aircraft, there was a helicopter flying upriver at 1,000 feet that looks as if was on a collision course with the ailing Airbus when it turned over Manhattan to get out of the way. 

edit - I missed the above posts about this.  Sorry for that.

Your post did provide some succinct insight, though. I the tractks recording by passur are anywhere close to correct, chronologically, I'd like to hear what the pilot of that helo has to say about what was seen.

[kea001]

I'm interested to hear someone on the news,
in this new era of political correctness,
on the cusp of a new democrat presidency,
come out and say,
with some authority
and with the knowledge that
they are saying what everyone is thinking
that,
indeed,

the culprits of this disaster were:

CANADA GEESE!!!

[flyfll5@gmail.com]

The Airbus does not indicate flaps by degrees. Flap settings are 1-2-3-4

[glencar]

Keith, if you're reading this, how far are you from Chelsea Peak? You're probably too far away from the city to have seen or heard this? My experience in the area only goes as far as EWR, so I'm not familiar. Also, isn't there a controller at N90 that frequents here? I can't remember. And which sector of N90 handles that area?

BL.

glancar and I believe someone else here are N90 controllers.
LGA departure would have been handling this flight.  Noone knows if they made the switch to departure, most likely not.  They took off Rwy 4, turned north, which is normal procedure from 4.  Sounds like they hit the birds on climbout, and started a left turn, maybe being vectored to TEB.  They were probably too high for HPN.

I actually took this flight Dec.22 on the way down to MYR. I got tired of taking that crappy discount airline that flies direct & selected US Air again. I worked the overnight last night (you can hear me from 1130PM to 230AM on 125.7) & I haven't heard anything from co-workers about this. It sounds like everyone involved did an awesome job. It's beautiful when everything works out.

[TelecomMom]

          OMG!  That made me laugh so hard, I almost peed myself.  Sorry, not disrespect meant to the event - but quite a snappy observation!  OK - I am new... sorry put this in the wrong place - meant for the post about being un PC and Canadian geese!

[tedd4u]

A+ - awesome job. Thank god nobody died. I look at it as a good omen for the year.

[Saabeba]

That's not a small plane with no engines.  Nice job!!

[aviator_06]

Wow! These were some Top of the line Pilots! They lost both engines from the bird strike and he managed to bring the jet down safely. Wow! Talk about quick thinking and plus to put a heavy jet down in the water like that with out it flipping or doing some serious damage also says something about the pilots. Well Done!

[ddphillips]

Been a while since I've flown the A320 (5 years or so) but on a dual engine failure you lose both generators and hydraulics. The RAT (Ram Air Turbine) extends beneath the belly providing Hydraulic pressure, electrics are provided by the battery only. Not a good situation... Flight controls go to Direct Law (no computer control) - simular to Manual Reversion. The pilots REALLY had their hand full as this is the worst possible situation to be in.

[gregp108]

If anyone wants to try to find it, I heard the last communications with the aircraft was through Teterboro airport, small airport in new jersey and requested landing there but didnt want to take a chance not making it and crashing in the city. Try Teterboro feed

[rbrong]

It seems like we have feeders all around LGA but not at LGA!  I listened through a bunch of stuff as close to the airport and departure frequencies as I could find and all I could get was a comment from Newark that there was an emergency at La Guardia.  After that I included a clip from JFK tower asking a pilot if all was okay since the controller had received a low altitude alert.  None of this is anything fancy but it's the best I could find.

I also snapped a shot of the flight log and ground track of Cactus 1549 from FlightAware.com.  Not a long flight!  Great piloting and speedy decision making saved lives today.

[TelecomMom]

Nice job!  Thanks.