Listened to a report this morning that the pilot, C.B. 'Sully' was a F4 driver and has almost 30,000 hours of flight time in his life.

He is also a 'safety' instructor, glider pilot and owns his own aviation safety consulting company. He also was a safety administrator for NASA.

This is one of those situations where being over-prepared in training is a good thing.

The Continental off runway excursion here in Colorado suggested to me that one should only remove coat and shoes (if you do that sort of thing) on an airliner after reaching cruise altitude.
After suddenly finding yourself outside in the dark, the wind and the snow after a botched takeoff you'd certainly want your coat and boots.

Same with a water landing.

Great choice for place to put the plane and great execution. If the pilot looks old and has lots of gray hairs - THAT'S A GOOD THING!

I wonder how many people pay attention to the instructions that come after:

"In the unlikely event of a water landing..."

If the goose went into/thru an engine, you could probably eat it with a straw. Watching out for metal slivers of course...

No computer system put that bird down in a relatively crowded river without catching a wingtip on something and skewing the landing into a crash. That situation could have gone bad so easily.

Give credit where credit is due.

Sue

Prelims with the pilot; he edged it tail end first towards the water, and, at the last minute, jinked it a little sideways, to avoid cartwheeling in. ALL pilot here, folks. I doubt the computer would jink it at the last possible moment. This guy pulled a ballsy move, used training & instincts, put the bird down intact, and saved 155 lives. AND, was the last off the plane. IMHO, this guy is hero of the year. NYC has already given the whole crew keys to the city for their heroism. Hell, even the PASSENGERS ensured each others survival, by not (overly) panicking, and following flight crew instructions.

I think I listened to the same thing comms did- I half expect to find out he's one of us, or a lurker. At this point, it does sound like he parked where he planned.

I guess he's got fan clubs starting, to. If safety, survival and preparedness folks start getting MySpace fan clubs, maybe it's just "rah-rah" for 99%, but that last 1% are the people I'm intersted.

http://www.coldwaterbootcamp.com/

Dr. Popsicle site on surviving cold water.

jshannon, that is an excellent link.
I like it. Thanks.

A group in the UK is raising funds to raise and restore a WW2 Halifax bomber. This ship also made a textbook ditching off Scotland after a fuel system failure.
The plane is in almost perfect condition after SLOWLY sinking into cold water after staying afloat a considerable length of time.
Anyone familiar with WW2 vintage bombers knows everything is literally 'fly by wire' and in extreme manuevers the RAF flight engineer would lean over and help PULL on the control column.
Freiherr Manfred Von Richtofen's words still ring true " It's not so much the machine, as the man in the machine."
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