Airplane Lands Safely In Hudson River (1 Viewer)

[Gerard K H Love]

I think you have pointed out exactly why there are no ejection seats for a select few on airplanes. Human nature is to safe your ass.

After he ejected safely from the burning 747 the pilot was quoted, "It's a shame so many had to die. I did all I could to try and extinguish the flames, but it was no use. There was no hope for them. I thank God I'm alive."

 

[homeless mind]

Sure, and as I said before, he performed extremely well. Is that heroic? snip...

y tu, Abel? Porque?

And to think, you used to be one of my heroes. ;)

I've been working on a few slogans, while the kids watch SpongeBob, as I have a few hours to kill before I go to a football party.

This is just a meager attempt to continue to endear myself to every single member of this forum.

Here goes:
"One Forum. One Brain."
"You're Right - As Long As We Agree."
Maybe they're better for the 1984 discussion. Orwell's kids' book.
I'll try and scribe one more slogan before finishing this thought...

Etymologically speaking, hero has a few meanings, that have changed/evolved with time. Much like language.

1. Originally meaning a demigod - when gods fucked mortals, had kids.

2. Someone who, in a position of danger or weakness, displayed courage.

3. A person who is idealized for courage, outstanding achievements.

There are more, sure, but those made sense to me relative to the pilot and his actions.

So, we know the pilot most likely wasn't a demigod (but may be now to the 150 passengers, and probably the crew, too).

We know he was in a position of danger and weakness (engines on fire).

Now, did he display courage? One could argue it was self-preservation, and I wouldn't have a problem with that. But IMO, he certainly displayed courage. When put in an in-extremis situation, one rises to the occasion or chokes. The pilot rose (or landed safely, to be more accurate).

And perhaps the event was not a "miracle" (noun: a surprising or welcome event; an extraordinary event or accomplishment); but rather, "miraculous" (adjective: highly extraordinary and improbable, bringing very welcome consequences).

Should he be idealized for an outstanding achievement? Vote on that one yourself, I cast a ballot in the "Yes" column. No hanging chads.

As promised, here's my last slogan:
"Great Minds Think Disalike."

Back to SpongeBob. Patrick's in trouble, it seems...and I'm ready to blow the froth off of a cold one.

Pax,

homeless mind

 

[cirerita]

If definitions 2 and 3 are true, then the world is, I'm afraid, full of heroes.

 

[slimedog]

Oh, come on!

Everyone knows that this is much more heroic than landing a plane. A monkey could do that. It was probably on autopilot.

I guess one could argue which is more heroic but certainly creating the Buk forum is far more dangerous.

 

[Digney in Burnaby]

Now, did he display courage? One could argue it was self-preservation, and I wouldn't have a problem with that. But IMO, he certainly displayed courage. When put in an in-extremis situation, one rises to the occasion or chokes.

I know that my "save his own ass" line was a toss off line. Flippancy is one of my ways of dealing with the world.

To me it still comes back to that "right stuff" pilot philosophy that Tom Wolfe chronicled in his book, and then was made into a movie. As I remember having the "right stuff" is using all your skill and knowledge to bring an airplane/jet/whathaveyou back after it's gone into some catastrophic failure.

Is that heroic? I really don't much care. If the city of New York wants to give him a ticker tape parade I won't be there, or watch it on t.v.

The whole event reminded me of the "Gimli Glider", a 1983 incident where a 767 ran out of fuel (stupidity concerning the conversion to metric) and the pilot finally ran out of options and had to land at what he thought was an abandoned military airport. There is a dramatization of it complete with interviews of the real people involved on youtube. First of five parts linked here so you have to commit some time to watch it. I don't remember the word hero being used for the pilot even though he had to do one amazingly difficult manouevre with the jet to slow it down to land.

Pilot Bob Pearson was interviewed after this most recent incident. I didn't catch what he said. Here's an interview/story from last year on the 25th anniversary of the Gimli event. I see the headline starts with "hero". Hooray!

Reading the article I see the pilot was demoted and co-pilot was suspended after until the full story was discovered. No doubt the pilot in New York has spent more time with the FAA (Federal Aviation Administration) than he wants to going over everything from his first piss of the day onward. (Flippancy, again.)

 

[mjp]

"One Forum. One Brain."
"You're Right - As Long As We Agree."

If that were true I'd be in here all by myself.

 

[Lolita Twist]

Story with photos and video at link below. Great job by the pilots bringing this A320 in safe.

http://www.nj.com/news/index.ssf/2009/01/plane_crash_lands_in_hudson_ri.html

Although I will say that I can't figure out how striking a single bird would disable both engines. Perhaps a flock of birds?

I've always loved conspiracy theories.


We were sitting at the dining room table yesterday chatting about this odd, remarkable, local story (I used to fish in the Hudson as a kid :p) over coffee & cigarettes (I really shouldn't be giving cigarettes to a cancer patient, but I feel like a bad person either way, so fuck it), and they're calling the pilot a hero. He flew in so smoothly. Like a bird.

 

[homeless mind]

When I started this thread, I was amazed, and uninformed as to the happening. Sounds like a '50s movie, "The Happening." But I could be mistaken. On that movie name, date, if it existed, and other points of discussion herein.

Thanks Dig, you are a cool voice in the wilderness. Cheers, not that you need it or request. Just appreciated. PS, too. Your information was sound, and more valid than anything I scribed. Research and knowledge turn me on. All the other posts here, too, thanks. Cool beans. Cool thread.

(Speaking of knowledge, did you know the movie Psycho was the first movie ever to show a toilet flushing?)

However, IMO, at the end of the day, the pilot on that ship is the one I want behind the tiller any time I fly. Auto-nav or not. Debate that, if you must...

Babe Ruth, Jackie Robinson, Abraham Lincoln, Billy-Boy Shakespeare, Billy Idol, Charles Bukowski, et al, they are all heroes in the mindscapes of many. For varied reasons. No shit, right? Weil, not that they are; not that they aren't. It's really up to each individual to decide what constitutes heroism in one's mind. And miracles. I have a friend who when he takes a shit is a miracle. No shit.

As my daughter will redundantly say to me (mimicking me: for real, for real, for real...).

Since I didn't sharpen my pencil point properly, there was allusion, confusion. Good confusion. Good allusion. Good debate. That's all.

Many of the heroes in my life go unseen. Probably not alone here. So it just makes sense.

Pax,

homeless mind

Side Note:::::::::LG: fix your sig, as a rock fan, it's driving my bonkers: ...my sound machine.) Love the song, long time...lol.

 

[Gerard K H Love]

That's why we try to avoid drunk posting.

 

[homeless mind]

Are you trying to cut posting down by 50%? :eek: :D

What about drunk reading?

 

[mjp]

Now you can land the plane yourself.

 

[Black Swan]

I am not too surprise to see this one. Wonder if they'll make one for 9/11, unless it already exists...

 

[Gerard K H Love]

So, do I get to be on a talk show now?

 

[mjp]

I am not too surprise to see this one. Wonder if they'll make one for 9/11, unless it already exists...

No one died in the Hudson river (that day), so that's not really a fair comparison.

So, do I get to be on a talk show now?

Yes. Have your people call Oprah's people. Extra points if you jump up onto Oprah's guest couch and pump your fist in the air when you describe the landing.

 

[Gerard K H Love]

Okay boss!

One of my sisters said I looked like Tom Cruise, in the eighties.

 

[mjp]

A really interesting 10 page (!) article in the latest Vanity Fair about the Hudson River landing. It's called, "Anatomy of a miracle."

It was the pilot's decision to glide to a Hudson River landing, but only because he knew he didn't have enough altitude to make to back to La Guardia, or to neighboring Teterboro. Aside from probably running straight into what is basically a cliff at the end of La Guardia, or landing in a New Jersey neighborhood, the Hudson River was his only option.

The article stresses many times that Sullenberger is a very good pilot, but he was flying a plane that made the landing much easier than it may have been in an old Boeing:

"...it doesn't really matter what Sullenberger thought, because fly-by-wire in the Airbus cannot be overpowered, and it can be switched off only by pulling circuit breakers, which no fool would have done. Sullenberger's A320 went all the way to the water under fly-by-wire control. That means it handled the constant adjustments and repetitive chores of flight by itself, and responded to Sullenberger's larger inputs according to a regime that is known as Normal Law..."

"Suffice it to say that if Sullenberger had done nothing after the loss of thrust the airplane would have smoothly slowed until reaching a certain angle with the airflow, at which point it would have lowered its nose to keep the wings from stalling, and would have done this even if for some reason Sullenberger had resisted. Of course, Sullenberger did no such thing."

"...the best gliding speed - a value which the airplane calculated all by itself and presented to him as a green dot on the speed scale of his primary flight display. During the pitch changes to achieve that speed, a yellow "trend" arrow appeared on the scale, pointing up or down from the current speed with predictions of speed 10 seconds into the future - an enormous aid to settling onto the green dot with a minimum of oscillation."

The article goes into the history of the Airbus planes, and it's pretty informative. It's the longest piece I've seen on the landing. And it makes it crystal clear that any decent pilot could have made the same landing - in that plane.

So yeah, good (if obvious) decision to go for the river, but otherwise, not heroic by any stretch. He was just doing his pilot job. Which the article also mentions is becoming less about flying a plane that sitting there watching it fly itself. I came away from the article with the impression that it would be exponentially more difficult - an incalculably more dangerous - to drive a Los Angeles city bus than pilot an Airbus.

But whichever side of the fence you're on about that river landing, this is a must-read article.

 

[Bukfan]

It's so typical for the media to make somebody a hero (it sells!) and then later on take away the hero status (that sells too!) rightfully or wrongfully...;)

- So now we know! The plane landed itself! All Sully did was to take the obvious choice - the Hudson river...:p

 

[Black Swan]

it was still a beauty to land this thing where it does not belong.

 

[mjp]

It's so typical for the media to make somebody a hero (it sells!) and then later on take away the hero status (that sells too!) rightfully or wrongfully...;)

I don't think the article set out to detract at all from what the pilot accomplished. But they state a lot of facts that allow you to draw the conclusion that he did the only thing he could do that wouldn't almost certainly kill everyone on board, and that the technology built into the plane made the landing a lot more about nerve and patience (and remaining calm) than raw flying skill.

A lot of luck was also involved - the river was calm, he was landing in the direction the river was flowing (less resistance), etc. At one point the article describes the Hudson as a straight, ten mile long landing strip. Couldn't have asked for much more than that.

A lot of pilots have flown simulations of the flight since it happened, and not one of them have been able to make either real landing strip, so not trying to do so was where his experience and skill came into play. But different circumstances on the river could have caused a very different outcome, as well. If the plane had hit a tugboat or a container ship, it would have looked like a very bad decision to try the river.

All in all it was a very lucky day for everyone involved. Except the geese. They didn't fare so well.

 

[slimedog]

And some people say the Bukowski forum would have happened in the same way even with out the guiding loving hands of MJP, nuturing us like a mother, offering us his teat to suckle on. But I would disagree with these foolhardly jokers for I, as all of you know, know the truth.

 

[number6horse]

Didn't the plane also pass under 2 bridges ? That's got to count for something, if true....

 

[mjp]

And some people say the Bukowski forum would have happened in the same way even with out the guiding loving hands of MJP, nuturing us like a mother, offering us his teat to suckle on.

But crazy French Airbus engineers didn't design my teat. If they had, maybe we wouldn't be in this mess.

Didn't the plane also pass under 2 bridges ? That's got to count for something, if true....

That would have been quite a feat, but no, it didn't.

 

[number6horse]

Hmmm. The part about the bridges was in the early reports and maybe it was corrected later and I missed it. Or maybe it was sloppy journalism, period. No....not in America...

 

[slimedog]

It must be a misconception of mine but I always asumed that MJP's teats were designed by FrenchAirbus engineers.:confused:

 

[number6horse]

And the act of receiving their sustenance is as thrilling as passing under two bridges. That's it - got it.

 

[mjp]

That's a common misconception, since they are so technologically advanced and smell like soft cheese.