Business travel
The crash of US Airways flight 1549
Jan 15th 2009, 22:41 by The Economist | WASHINGTON DC
ON WEDNESDAY, both USA Today and the excellent blog BoingBoing.net noted that it had been two years since US airlines last lost a passenger in a plane crash. That streak marked the first time in the jet age that two consecutive years passed without a death in a commercial airline crash. In fact, it had been seven years since the last fatal crash of a full-size jetliner in the United States.
That impressive streak could have been, but was thankfully not, broken on Thursday when a bird strike apparently caused both engines on a US Airways jet to lose power. US Airways Flight 1549 was en route from New York's LaGaurdia airport to Charlotte, North Carolina when it was forced to make an emergency landing in the Hudson River. All aboard have been reported safe, according to CNN, and there were apparently no serious injuries. The National Transportation Safety Board is investigating.
Aside from being grateful that all the passengers apparently got out safely, there are a few things we can take away from this incident. Despite the unfortunate timing, USA Today was right to note air travel's extraordinary safety. One statistic in particular from the article should do an excellent job of calming nervous fliers:
[MIT Professor Arnold] Barnett calculates that it's more likely for a young child to be elected president in his or her lifetime than to die on a single jet flight in the USA or in similar industrial nations in Europe, Canada or Japan.
That's a pretty comforting statistic. But just in case you're the kind of traveller who defies statistics, Gulliver explained how to survive a plane crash late last year. It turns out that the vast majority of airplane accidents are survivable, since, like this one, they usually occur close to the ground—not at 35,000 feet. And even if there is a problem that high up, you could still survive it. When Qantas Flight 30 suffered rapid decompression last summer, the plane made an emergency descent to a breathable altitude and later landed safely.
In crashes like Thursday's and the fire aboard a Continental Airlines jet in Denver on December 20th, getting out of the airplane quickly is most important. The airlines have done a good job making sure passengers are able to do just that, and it's paid off. David Paterson, the governor of New York, is already referring to the "miracle on the Hudson," but this was no miracle: it was just another day of the airlines, the TSA and the FAA successfully working together to keep passengers safe. May there be many more like it.
Update: Steven Johnson, the Boing Boing blogger, regrets posting about how safe air travel is. He writes, "yesterday's post will be the last thing I say in public about aviation safety.... I am done tempting fate on this issue."
(Photo credit: AP)
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They all did a beautiful job, starting with God, Capt. Sully, his crew, the passengers and the boat Capt's their crews. Everything that could go right did go right (instead of the usual and depressing reverse). I wish the Nation were that way.Sully proved that really bleeding off the speed and energy of the plane just above the water's surface, stalling the whole worx, and dunking the tail end at the very last possible 'flyable' moment can result in survivable decelleration. At least in calm water.
Ditching is a controlled landing on water and not a 'crash' as is often incorrectly stated. Ditching most often occurs when an aircraft overshoots a runway end adjacent to water which is the principle reason that Airbus aircraft engineers incorporated a 'ditching switch'. Other forms of ditching, similar to US Air 1549 are far less common. What tends to challenge ditching efforts are either sea swells or damage which the aircraft sustains in the process of running off the end of a runway as it enters the water, neither of which was the case here, but fast moving currents. The ditching switch closes outflow valves, intake vents, and removes power from the cabin fans which circulate aircraft cabin air, provided all of these functions are functioning in automatic mode. In short, this Airbus A320 with the assistance of a talented flight crew, ensured that the aircraft functioned as it was quite rightly designed to do.
I felt really bad, as an engineer, to see the newspapers on the other day saying it was a "miracle". To me, that was a well done job from the crew, the safety authorities and most importantly, from the engineers who designed the aircraft.
Kudos indeed to the pilot, the rest of the crew, and the passengers who followed instructions and did not panic. I was a passenger in a small plane that ditched (also successfully - another fantastic pilot!) in the Caribbean Ocean off of Antigua about 20 years ago. We didn't have to worry about such cold water, but after we made it on land (thanks to the Windjammer cruise ship's life-boats, which were sent to help, and the Antigua coast guard), we learned the place we landed (watered?) was called "shark ally". Our biggest problem after that was the US embassy, which was particularly uncooperative about helping us get new passports or any kind of travel documents. Thus, the risks/problems associated with such an incident only start with landing the plane safely...
Now that everyone's been reported alive and well, is it safe to make the joke about the economist needing to revise its old article about "Veritas Airways" (7 Sep 2006)? "In the history of modern aviation the number of successful water landings by wide-body aircraft is exactly [1]."Amazing job by the pilot.
stephen: the one off of africa was Ethiopian 961; the video on youtube is quite dramatic for anybody interested.i think this might be the first fully survived intentional ditching, which can be considered a different scenario from the runway overshoot.
A China Airlines 747-400 overshot the old runway in Hong Kong in the mid-90s and ended up in the harbour. Another instance where the aircraft remained intact and everyone managed to evacuate safely.
The water landing incident brings a few things to mind. First is the excellent quality of training and simulation technology, able to teach someone how to land a large aircraft in the water without (much) damage or injury. The pilot almost certainly had never ditched a real plane in the water before. The pilot deserves enormous praise for a job well done.I suspect this is also the first time anyone has ever landed a modern passenger aircraft in the water without loss of life. Can anyone comment authoritatively on that? I recall a crash off eastern Africa many years ago in which some people survived, but the plane still broke up.It also reminds me of a story about a cargo plane that lost 3 of its 4 engines to bird strike and still landed safely. Also very impressive.
The rapid evacuation of all on board is a tribute to the Flight Attendants' training and grace under extreme pressure. We would do well to remember this the next time we're tempted to think of them as waitresses and waiters.Their #1 job is our safety! God bless them!