Friday, January 23, 2009

How To Ditch a Jetliner

These two clips, courtesy of The Guardian, show US Airways 1549 coming down in New York's Hudson River. The first clip shows how gently the pilot, Chesley Sullenberger, set the plane down, slightly nose high, which probably explains how the aircraft was able to shed its engines without tearing off the wings and breaking up the fuselage in the process.



The second clip shows the aircraft afloat, drifting down river (rather quickly in fact) while the emergency exits are opened and the passengers escape out onto the wings. The crew wisely kept the rear exit doors closed which probably kept the aircraft from sinking and taking passengers down with it.



The

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