Original subtitles

After takeoff checklist complete.

US Airways Flight 1549

has just left New York's LaGuardia Airport.

Birds!

And that fast, we were just on top of them.

My aircraft.

Your aircraft.

Both of the plane's engines

have stopped working.

Mayday, mayday, mayday, this is Cactus 1549.

The plane is falling from the sky.

There are only a few seconds to decide what to do.

If we can get it for you,

you wanna try to land on runway one-three.

We're unable.

155 lives depend on the pilots

making the right call.

Hey, Cactus 1549,

you can land runway one at Teterboro.

Can't do it.

With a bad option on the right and a worse one

on the left, the crew decides to put their Airbus

on the runway that's dead ahead.

We're gonna be in the Hudson.

Mayday, mayday.

New York's LaGuardia Airport, mid-afternoon.

Please take a moment to listen to this important--

US Airways Flight 1549 is a short hop

from New York City to Charlotte, North Carolina.

At least it will be a little warmer in Charlotte.

Your seats are a floating device.

Together in the cockpit today

are Captain Chesley Sullenberger, 57.

Clear to push.

And First Officer Jeffrey Skiles, 49.

We were late because the weather was bad earlier,

but by this point, the weather had cleared off

for our departure and it was just puffy clouds.

28 brakes released.

Spot 28 for Cactus 1549.

150 passengers are onboard

the European-made Airbus A320.

Businessman Clay Presley is on his way home to Charlotte.

I arrived at the the airport at LaGuardia.

It was very cold.

It had been snowing a little bit that day

and we had a storm coming in.

So we wanted to make sure we made that flight

and weren't hung up or delayed on some later flight.

The crew flew in an hour earlier from Charlotte

with Sullenberger at the controls.

Your brakes, your aircraft.

First Officer Skiles

will be flying the plane back to Charlotte.

My aircraft.

It's a common sharing of piloting duties.

Cactus 1549 runway four clear for takeoff.

Cactus 1549, clear for takeoff.

This trip marks the final leg

of a four-day sequence of flights for both men.

We made our standard call outs.

It was just a normal takeoff,

normal procedures on the climb out.

There was absolutely nothing at all to indicate

that this would be any different than any other takeoff

in my entire career.

But by the end of the day,

they'll be the most famous crew on the planet.

Gear airplanes.

Gear up.

Patrick Harten is one

of the controllers handling traffic out of LaGuardia today.

He has one of the most stressful jobs in the world.

When I sit down in front of a radar, I am responsible

for every person on every airplane under my control.

And I take that responsibility very seriously.

Cactus 1549, New York departure, radar contact.

Climb and maintain 1-5,000.

The flight will climb

northeast out of LaGuardia,

and then begin a slow turn south towards Charlotte.

I think I had about three or four airplanes

on my frequency at that time.

And it was just a normal departure.

It was just another flight

that I've handled a million times.

Riding the thrusts

of two General Electric engines,

the aircraft powers into the sky.

Cactus 1549, 700 climbing 5,000.

What a view of the Hudson today.

Yeah.

After takeoff checklist complete.

Flight 1549 is traveling

at almost 400 kilometers an hour.

It's been in the air for just a minute and a half.

I caught something out of the corner of my eye.

And slightly to our right but still ahead of us

was a line of crows.

And they were very, very close,

too close for us to maneuver around.

Whoa!

And that fast, we were just on top of them.

You can just feel the power of the plane going forward,

then all of a sudden, there was this gigantic boom.

It seemed like it stopped in mid-air,

like you hit a brick wall.

And then all of a sudden, somebody said,

"The left engine's on fire."

Uh-oh.

Before we could even assess the situation...

We gpt one roll, both of them rolling back.

Both engines rolled back to idle.

The ignition's stuck.

Just 13 seconds after their problems began,

Sullenberger takes control of the struggling plane.

My aircraft.

Your aircraft.

Get the QRH, loss of thrust in both engines.

The QRH or Quick Reference Handbook

is a step-by-step guide to dealing with emergencies.

Mayday, mayday, mayday, this is Cactus 1549.

Hit birds, we've lost thrust in both engines.

We're turning back towards LaGuardia.

When a pilot says mayday or declares an emergency,

you go from a focused state to a hyper focused state.

You just focus in on the emergency itself

and figure out the solution to the problem.

Okay, you need to return to LaGuardia.

Turn left heading 2-2-0.

2-2-0.

All of a sudden there was a smell

that came through the cabin.

Something's burning.

If fuel remaining, egine mode selector ignition.

What I'm thinking though at this point is that

we're gonna just have to restart an engine.

Thrust levers, confirm idle.

Idle.

The procedure is to try to restart the engines

and I always had faith we could do that.

Airspeed optimum relay 300 knots.

We don't have that.

We don't.

Hey, Cactus 1549, if we can get it for you,

you wanna try and land on runway one-three.

We're unable.

The conversations with Captain Sullenberg

were very short and to the point,

which was very appropriate for the emergency.

There was a lot going on and wasn't much time to handle it.

When Captain Sullenberger simply said, "unable",

it didn't bother me.

I mean, he had his hands full flying the airplane

and I understood that.

So my job is just to move on to the next option.

All right, Cactus 1549,

it's gonna be traffic for runway three-one.

Unable.

Harten still wants the jet

to return to LaGuardia,

but Flight 1549 is now just 1400 feet above the ground.

Cactus 1549, runway four is available

if you wanna make left, traffic runway four.

I'm not sure we can make any runway.

What's to our right, anything in New Jersey, Teterboro?

Okay, yeah, off to your right side is Teterboro Airport.

You wanna try to go to Teterboro?

Teterboro is a small airport

on the New Jersey side of the Hudson River

but it's several kilometers away.

And without their engines, Flight 1549 is dropping fast.

You wanna try to go to Teterboro?

Yes.

When the air traffic controller pointed out Teterboro,

I looked at it and I stopped and I was concerned

that he was actually going to try for it.

I didn't think we could make it.

So you're sitting there very quietly.

People are anxiously waiting for information.

And they wanted reassurance that things were gonna be okay.

You could hear the microphone come on.

This is the captain.

We're hoping he was gonna say I've got this under control,

we're gonna be okay, we're gonna make it,

we're gonna turn around and go back and land.

That's what you were hoping to here.

Brace for impact.

What does he mean brace for impact?

And then all of a sudden, it registered.

I think he's saying we're gonna crash.

Get your heads down!

I had no idea about how to brace for impact.

Everybody's looking around, brace for impact,

what do you mean brace for impact and how do you brace?

Go ahead, try number one.

I put it back on.

Okay, put it back on, put it back on.

While the crew struggles

to fly their stricken plane,

Patrick Harten is still trying to find them an airport.

I actually worked Teterboro Airport for about three years.

So I was very familiar with the airport.

Hey, Cactus 1549, you can land runway one at Teterboro.

Can't do it.

Okay, which runway would you like at Teterboro?

We're gonna be in the Hudson.

I'm sorry, say again, Cactus?

I could hear him

but my mind didn't really wanna comprehend those words.

We're gonna be in the Hudson.

That was a death sentence for him.

And I didn't want to accept the fact that it was over

and there were no more options left.

I don't think we're going back to LaGuardia.

I just emailed my wife and just said I love you.

And I didn't say anything else

because I really did not want her to worry.

Okay, let's go.

Put the flaps out.

I thought to myself,

great, the Hudson River was our best opportunity.

It was really the only thing in sight

where we could land this airplane.

Passengers throughout the plane

watched the Hudson rise to meet them

and begin making preparations of their own.

So I started thinking about if we're gonna crash,

I know I need to figure out where the exit rows are.

If the water comes in, you need to be able

to hold your breath long enough to get to those four

or five rows and get the doors open if you can.

Got flaps out, 250 feet in the air.

We're not gonna be able to get an engine started,

so I started calling out airspeeds and altitudes.

170 knots.

To give him a situational awareness of what was going on.

Got flaps two, you want more?

No, let's stay at two.

Got any ideas?

I actually have not.

So focused on what we were doing

and I always thought it would work out.

Below 300 feet,

Patrick Harten's radar can't see the plane.

Flight 1549 disappears.

When the aircraft disappeared off my radar,

I just assumed that there weren't gonna be any survivors.

In the cabin, the passengers prepare

for the inevitable.

All the passengers really started pulling together.

And somebody yelled out as we were going down,

"Be ready at the doors."

Stay down.

The folks at the door says, "We're ready."

And I was just scared to death.

We're gonna brace.

Looked like the airplane was going right for the bottom

of the Hudson River.

All we saw was water cascading over the windshield.

It was like a tornado.

Pieces of the plane were being torn apart.

Some people were thrown around pretty good.

Then the airplane popped up

and it was just gently rocking in the waves.

We all just sat there.

We were all in shock and we were waiting for what's next.

US Airways Flight 1549 was in the air

for just five minutes and eight seconds.

Having made a remarkable landing,

the passengers and crew now face a new danger.

The plane is leaking.

The ice cold water of the Hudson is pouring into the cabin.

The crew of Flight 1549 has just performed

an extremely difficult aviation feat,

but they still have more work to do.

Captain Sullenberger heads for the cabin,

while First Officer Skiles shuts down the plane.

I stayed behind and did the evacuation checklist.

And so it was probably about 45 seconds

before I actually went back myself in the cabin

after we landed.

In an instant, the $75 million plane

has become an unlikely boat floating down the Hudson River.

It's now filling with freezing water.

That water was cold.

It was very cold, so your feet are freezing.

People came to their senses and they said,

"Get the doors open, get the doors open."

At air traffic control,

Patrick Harten has no idea

the plane even made it down safely.

I didn't think anyone could survive

a water landing like that.

They got me off position 'cause I was obviously

in no condition to work traffic anymore.

Harten is led to his union office.

Despite his ordeal, protocol demands

he recount his version of events.

I really didn't wanna speak to anyone.

I just wanted to hide under a rock.

I needed my wife to know what had happened

but I knew I couldn't talk to her

because I was pretty much in a fragile state

and I didn't wanna break down.

So I sent her a simple text message.

I said, had a crash, I'm not okay, can't talk now.

Passengers nearest the exits

opened the doors quickly, while Sullenberger

and the cabin crew begin managing the evacuation.

I just jumped up very quickly and started making my way

to the emergency door.

And so I worked my way out onto the wing,

just a few steps to start with.

I started noticing that people around me

had their flotation devices.

They had pulled up their seat bottoms

or they had a life jacket that they had taken.

I had nothing with me.

Skiles heads back to help the crew

in the cabin get passengers out of the sinking plane.

He knows there's not much time

and one of the flight attendants has been injured.

I went back to about mid-cabin and Sully and I

and two young men were getting seat cushions and life vests,

which are underneath the seats, and were passing them out.

And I'm looking around trying to assess the situation.

Is the plane gonna blow up, what's the next step?

There were actually probably six or eight people

that went into the water.

And they were shivering and they were cold.

We started pulling them back up onto the wing.

At the back of the plane,

water continues pouring in.

Passengers are directed to move forward to escape.

Go over the seat if you have to.

This unwieldy boat

won't be floating much longer.

We were actually in the water up to our knees

and it was just absolutely freezing cold.

Every part of your body that was in that water

just ached to the bone.

Go forward!

Is there anybody here?

We were very confident there was nobody left

on the airplane, but what was going on on the wings,

we just had no idea.

Skiles and Sullenberger

are the last ones off the plane.

I just saw the big slash

when the plane just bounced over the water.

Small commercial airline crashed into the water.

They've been in the water more than 10 minutes already.

LaGuardia Airport has sent out an alert

to New York's emergency services.

In the middle of the Hudson, 155 frozen people hope

that help will arrive in time.

I saw the first ferry.

And I could see the wheelhouse.

I felt like, okay, we're really gonna be okay.

There was a sigh of relief.

First on the scene are passenger ferries

that have been shuttling people across the Hudson.

They are eventually joined by the Coast Guard

and fire department.

The atmosphere on the ferry was still one of concern

because we didn't know whether all the passengers

got off the plane at that point in time.

I was sitting in the union office preparing

to make my statement.

Where do I start?

And that's when one of my friends popped their head

into the office and said,

"Hey, Patty, it looks like everyone made it."

And I was like, really?

That was incredible news.

I mean, I was still traumatized by the event itself,

but the fact that everyone made it was like the weight

of the world was lifted off my shoulders.

The entire nation looks on

as every single passenger and the entire crew

of Flight 1549 is brought to safety.

It's cold.

Are you okay?

Yeah.

Like so many others around the world,

investigators from the National Transportation Safety Board

are riveted to the pictures.

Hey, you've gotta see this.

We learned a little bit about the accident,

of course, before we launched.

The TV channels were showing the aircraft

in the river and everything.

All agreed that the landing is extraordinary.

I think it was a miracle

and very blessed to have walked away.

I reached over to Captain Sully and just said

I just want you to know you saved my life

and everyone's lives here.

In my mind, we were dead

and every one of us came out of that alive.

It's a miracle.

By evening,

the plane is almost completely underwater.

The current is pushing it towards the edge of the river.

The aircraft was tied up against the pier and we went down

to look at it to see what we were up against, of course,

but we can't do much at night.

NTSB Investigator Harold Reichel arrives

on the scene.

The water was dark, of course.

We just saw the tail and most of the fuselage

and one of the wings was underneath the water.

We knew it was going to be quite difficult

to get it A, out of the water and then B, to a place

where we could examine the components of the airplane

in a more controlled manner.

For investigators, it's an unusual situation.

Normally, their main task is

to uncover the cause of a crash.

With Flight 1549, the cause seems obvious.

- Birds. - Whoa!

The original mayday call was clear.

Mayday, mayday, mayday, this is Cactus 1549.

Hit birds, we've lost thrust in both engines.

We're turning back towards LaGuardia.

The crew reported that they hit several birds

shortly after takeoff.

I think everybody realized

that a bird strike had occurred.

What people didn't know was what kind of birds

brought the aircraft down, whether it might have been

a combination of a bird strike plus something else,

whether the crew acted and flew the aircraft

as they should have.

My aircraft.

Your aircraft.

Get the QRH.

US Airways pilot made an incredibly skillful

emergency landing in the Hudson River.

Investigators want to interview both pilots.

But their sudden fame makes them hard to get to.

It became a little bit more difficult than usual

to A, locate the flight crew and then B, to talk to them.

They were instant heroes.

Nothing in a life can prepare one for the media frenzy

of a situation like this.

And it's not just the pilot's

newfound celebrity that's an obstacle

for investigators like Katherine Wilson.

One of the most challenging things in this case was

nobody wanted to sully Sully.

He was a hero in this case

and we were the ones who was potentially going

to pick apart what he did and try to find out what he did

and whether it was right or not.

To prove that birds caused the crash,

authorities need to get the plane out of the water,

but a vital piece is missing.

We had been told earlier that both engines

were still attached to the aircraft.

That turned out not to be true.

So that became a major goal right off the bat was

to figure out where that second engine was.

We didn't know exactly where it was.

Let's focus on this area.

But we have films of the aircraft actually touching down

and we could cross reference different things.

We used some side-scanning sonar

that gave us a very clear picture of the bottom.

It wasn't that easy to do

because the Hudson River has a current.

And the current changes throughout the day.

So it took three days ultimately to find the engine.

Within days, the recovered engine and the rest

of the aircraft are moved to a warehouse in New Jersey

so investigators can study the wreckage more carefully.

We certainly couldn't do it out there

at the edge of the Hudson River.

And you can imagine how interesting it was

to take an airplane 150 or 200 feet long

through a very, very populated area in New Jersey.

As the plane is being moved,

investigators work with the voice and data recorders.

Okay, let's hear it.

Which were in the most damaged part

of the plane, the tail.

The cockpit voice recorder and the flight data recorder

were in virtually pristine shape.

The aircraft had sustained quite a bit of damage

in the rear end, but the recorders themselves

survived very well.

We were really lucky all of the data was able

to be downloaded normally.

Whoa!

We got one roll, both of them rolling back.

Listening to the CVR provides vital insight

into how the crew responded to the emergency.

In this case, both Captain Sullenberger

and First Officer Skiles acted extremely professionally.

The ignition's stuck.

Each member had their own roles and responsibilities.

They stayed with those roles and responsibilities

throughout the accident flight

and communicated only when necessary.

Put the flaps out.

On Flight 1549.

My aircraft.

It took just seconds for the crew

to each assume their individual responsibilities.

Part of the reason they handled the emergency so well

was that Jeffery Skiles had only just finished

his Airbus training.

This was my first trip out as a regular line pilot

in the Airbus A320.

It literally was right out of training.

And the benefit of that was that he knew exactly

the checklist to turn to and that's exactly what he did.

If fuel remaining,

engine mode selector ignition.

Crews are highly trained in emergency procedures.

And the main thing is to follow procedures in this instance

and that's exactly what First Officer Skiles did

by grabbing the Quick Reference Handbook

and turning to the appropriate checklist.

But as investigators examined the checklist

for restarting this plane's engines,

they make a troubling discovery.

It was assembled for an event that occurred 20,000 feet

in the air, where a crew would have plenty of time to slowly

and carefully go through a three-page checklist,

the end of which was how do we ditch the airplane.

So it was a three-page checklist and really, I only got

to about the page and a half through this checklist

in the time that we had.

Airspeed optimum relay.

The crew spent a lot of time trying to restart the engines

when they could've been focusing on preparing the airplane

for the ditching.

300 knots, we don't have that.

We don't.

Overly complicated checklists

have played a role in deadly plane crashes in the past.

In 1998, a fire broke out onboard a Swiss Air passenger jet.

The checklist the crew used for that situation

would have taken them up to half an hour to complete.

It's a half hour they didn't have.

But on Flight 1549, the checklist was far

from the greatest challenge facing Sullenberger and Skiles.

I'm not sure we can make any runway.

Water landings are notoriously difficult

because unless they're perfect, they can be catastrophic.

In 1996, after a hijacking, an Ethiopian Airlines captain

tried to land off the Comoros Islands

when his plane ran out of fuel.

His left wing hit the water first,

causing the plane to cartwheel.

It was ripped to pieces.

Of the 175 people onboard, only 50 survived.

Investigators soon learn that none of the major airlines

use simulators to teach pilots how to land on water.

Training for ditching in a simulator is very difficult.

We don't have the models to accurately simulate

what an airplane would do when it touches down on water.

Given the rarity of this type of event,

it would be very difficult to justify training pilots

for this type of event.

But even without

ever going through a simulation,

Captain Sullenberger got almost everything right.

He kept the nose up and wings level.

He let the tail hit the water first,

slowing the jet down enough so that it survived the impact.

Nice flying.

NTSB investigators turned

to their own simulation to answer a vital question.

Did Sullenberger have to land in the Hudson?

Brace for impact.

Or could he have made it to a runway?

Mayday, mayday, mayday, this is Cactus 1549.

Investigators studied Chesley Sullenberger

and Jeffrey Skiles' actions

in the moments after their plane collided with birds.

Ignition.

We wanted to know did the pilots do the right thing.

So what we did in the simulator was we tested exactly that.

Was there enough energy to make it back to LaGuardia?

And what we found was about 50% of the time,

we were able to make it back to the airport.

But when a 35 second delay is imposed

after the bird strike to account for the crew's attempt

to restart the engines, all of the simulator pilots crash

before reaching the runway.

When we took into consideration

the decision-making process that Captain Sullenberger

went through, we realized that it was not possible

to make it back to the airport.

Cactus 1549, runway four is available.

There's no doubt.

We're gonna be in the Hudson.

Putting the plane in the Hudson

was the right call.

Sullenberger didn't have enough altitude to glide

to either LaGuardia or Teterboro Airports.

Got one roll, both of them rolling back.

The investigators also discover

that Sullenberger made a decision that wasn't at the top

of the checklist, one that was critical

to the survival of everyone onboard.

I'm starting the APU.

On commercial jetliners,

the engines provide power to electrical systems.

If the engines stop working,

the crew eventually loses those systems.

The APU is an emergency generator

that keeps some things running.

The APU allowed him to still see his screens,

the instruments still worked.

It also allowed the A320 itself

to assist with the heroic landing.

The APU provided power

to the plane's electronic brain, stopping the pilots

from making any potentially dangerous moves.

It kept them inside a so-called flight envelope.

By starting the APU early in the sequence, the flight crew

was able to maintain the flight envelope protections,

which prevented the airplane from stalling

when the airspeed got too slow.

He's right on the edge of stall speed.

The flight data shows

that Sullenberger was going slower than the ideal speed.

The airspeed during the accident sequence

got about 20 knots slower than it should have been

for this flight.

But the A320's flight computer is designed

to constantly adjust the plane's pitch

and keep it from stalling.

We definitely could've had

a much more catastrophic outcome

had the airplane actually stalled.

Starting the APU.

Sullenberger's quick thinking made sure

the plane's complex computer system kept working.

It gave him an automated safety net

so he'd have the best chance to do the nearly impossible.

We're gonna be in the Hudson.

It was a combination of a good crew and a good airplane.

Let's go.

Put the flaps out.

The captain had the presence of mind for instance

just before they were about to land,

a couple of hundred feet in the air,

to turn to the first officer and he asks...

Got any ideas?

I actually have not.

They were both coordinating right up to the end

and that's what we like to see.

Skill, training and the aircraft's very design

combined to save the lives of 155 people.

But investigators still want to know how birds crippled

two highly advanced jet engines

and if they can stop it from happening again.

Eight days after the crash, investigators are finally able

to examine the engines in detail.

Richard Dolbeer has spent much of his career

studying collisions between birds and airplanes.

When aircraft strikes a bird,

generally there's not much left of the bird,

particularly if that bird goes through the engine.

The engines are analyzed piece by piece

to try and figure out exactly what happened

3,000 feet above New York.

Let's look inside.

We exposed the engine surfaces to a black light.

Proteins from many tissues will fluoresce

with a black light.

Much of the tissue was already gone,

but many of the proteins stayed

on the surfaces of the engine.

Look at that.

Deep in the right engine, investigators find

about a cup of charred remain.

Most of the remains found was just muscle tissue,

bone fragments and minuscule feather remains.

I was able to find about 29 samples in one engine

and 14 in the other.

But the engines aren't the only part

of the plane that's been damaged.

Birds.

Whoa!

The aircraft hit many birds.

So we found evidence on the wings and on the flaps

and on the fuselage, but the plane can still fly

when that occurs.

The threat posed by bird strikes is well known.

Bird strikes are a much bigger problem

than the general public realizes.

In the last 20 years, there have been approximately

210 aircraft that have been destroyed

because of collisions with birds.

This Boeing 757 ingested a crow

while taking off from Manchester, England,

later landing safely.

In 2008 alone, there were four dramatic accidents.

A Boeing 747 sucked a kestrel into one of its engines.

The crew aborted takeoff and survived.

The plane was ruined.

This jet ingested pelicans into both engines

and one ended up in the cockpit.

Repairs cost $2 million.

The engine of an MD10 was severely damaged by a gadwall.

The repair cost was $900,000.

And five people were killed when this Cessna smashed

into at least one pelican.

More than 200 people have died

in bird strike accidents since 1988.

The problem could get worse

because there are more birds out there.

By restricting the use of pesticides that were hazardous

to birds, such as DDT, we've seen a tremendous rebound

in the populations of bird species, a remarkable increase

in the Canada geese that are resident, non-migratory birds.

Nationwide, the population has grown from about 1 million

to about 4 million.

At LaGuardia,

one of the airport's biggest problems

is a year-round goose colony on nearby Rikers Island.

In the year 2002 to 2004,

there were eight Canada goose strikes at LaGuardia Airport

involved birds either on the airport

or right off of the airport.

One of those strikes almost caused a plane to crash

and it was a very close call.

For the past several years, airport officials

have rounded up hundreds of geese from Rikers Island

and euthanized them.

It's controversial but should be effective.

So where did these birds come from?

If the geese that hit US Airways Flight 1549

were local, they can be controlled.

Investigators need to know more about them.

The remains that we did find were so small

that we couldn't really tell what type of birds

and we enlisted the help of the Smithsonian Institution.

They can take remains, even very small remains

of small pieces of feathers or flesh or whatever,

and they can identify them.

The hope is that DNA analysis of the remains

will not only confirm the bird's species

but also offer clues as to where they came from.

While they wait for answers, investigators turn

to answering the question of how a few birds

forced a 68 ton jet from the sky.

Before they can be used in a passenger jet,

engines undergo rigorous testing to prove they can perform

under extreme conditions.

The tests include ingesting frozen bird carcasses.

The CFM turbo fan engines that power the A320

passed those tests and was certified in 1996.

The large bird test required for the CFM engine

is shooting a four-pound bird from an air cannon

into the engine, which is running at near full power.

To pass, the engines don't have

to keep running.

They only have to stay together,

which they did on Sullenberger's plane.

Well, the engines did not experience

what we call uncontained failures, no large chunks

of fan blades or anything flew out through the cowls

to hurt people inside the airplane.

Fan blades are always the most interesting part

to look at, and they often tell quite a story.

A series of fan blades throughout the engine

compress incoming air until it's ignited

in the core creating thrust.

Ingested bird can wreak havoc on this process.

When a fan blade of an engine fails,

it causes a lot of continuing damage.

In this particular case, all the fan blades were there.

They suffered severe damage, but none were broken.

An analysis of the engines shows

that while the primary fan blades survived the impact,

the delicate machinery inside the cores

of both engines did not.

Uh-oh.

We got one roll, both of them rolling back.

Once we went into the engine itself, into the core,

we determined that there was significant damage.

When a bird gets ingested into the core,

it is such a large mass compared to these blades

that it does a lot of damage to them.

The birds ingested into Flight 1549...

Mayday, mayday, mayday, this is Cactus 1549.

Ripped apart the engine's compressors,

metal shards from these broken compressors were sucked deep

into the cores of both engines, shutting them down.

We've hit birds, we've lost thrust in both engines.

When DNA results come back

from the Smithsonian Institution,

investigators finally understand

why Flight 1549 lost both its engines.

The birds that struck Sullenberger and Skiles' aircraft

were adult Canada geese.

They were far larger than anything the engines

were ever tested for.

Because of that analysis,

we know that these birds ingested

each probably weighed about 10 pounds.

The tests also confirmed that as many

as four large birds had hit Flight 1549's engines.

It was simply too much for them to handle.

Rarely do birds get ingested into the core of the engine.

Rarely does an engine ingest the bird

and then stop running completely.

That's a very rare event.

The ignition's stuck.

What makes this one even rarer

is that both engines ingested birds and both shut down.

We're gonna be in the Hudson.

The DNA test also proves

that the geese involved in this accident

were not the local geese

that LaGuardia has worked so hard to manage.

These were geese that had been in Northern Canada

during the proceeding summer.

They were migratory geese.

The collision between the migrating geese

and Flight 1549 happened seven kilometers from the airport.

It means that none of the existing programs for reducing

the number of birds would have prevented the collision.

It also means that what happened to that flight

could happen again, unless a way can be found

to keep birds and planes apart.

Every year, about 2 million planes

pass over New York's air space.

Most people do not appreciate the problems

that birds can cause to aircraft.

They don't realize how a small seemingly insignificant

organism in relation to the size of an aircraft

can cause these kinds of catastrophic failures.

The airline industry needs to find solutions

to bird strikes.

Placing screens in front of the engines is one

of the most obvious answers,

but there are serious drawbacks.

Screens can fall off, screens can break

and then they would be ingested into the engine

causing similar damage or more catastrophic damage.

Screens can also introduce turbulence

to the air flow which can starve the engines of air

causing them to fail.

Winter weather is also a serious problem for engine screens.

A screen is a perfect ice builder

and will accrete ice very quickly in icing conditions.

A more promising solution

is already being tested in several American cities,

including New York.

At John F. Kennedy Airport, specialized radar

is sweeping the skies looking for birds near planes.

Most airports are equipped with radar

that sends out radio waves

that simply bounce off objects in the sky.

Typically, only large objects are seen.

And most of this information isn't passed along

to air traffic controllers.

The fact is that their scopes

would be cluttered with things.

Tall masts from ships for instance would pop up

on their radar as low targets.

The clutter in fact with interfere with air traffic control

and that's not a good thing.

But now, finely calibrated avian radar

is being tested at JFK.

It can distinguish items the size of hummingbirds.

If any birds are detected moving through flight paths,

crews could be alerted.

I would love to see bird radar technology.

The key would be how to incorporate that

without increasing workflow

to an already stressed controller.

Tests continue but widespread use

of avian radar is still years away.

Cactus 1549, runway four clear for takeoff.

Cactus 1549, clear for takeoff.

Until then, collisions

between birds and planes will continue.

What the safe outcome of Flight 1549 proved

is that right now the best defense against this threat

is a good team in the cockpit.

We had a very experienced flight crew

with very good training.

My aircraft.

Your aircraft.

Get the QRH.

All your training that you've done and all the years

that you've been flying the airplanes,

it all just comes back to you when you need it.

My aircraft.

Your aircraft.

Sully and I worked together extremely well on this event.

I knew what was in his mind and he knew what was in my mind.

We were both accomplishing our individual roles

but we had a knowledge of the whole situation.

Okay, you need to return to LaGuardia.

Turn left heading 2-2-0. - 2-2-0.

This event definitely puts things in perspective

for you as a controller.

One thing, I appreciate more the teamwork

and how when you work together,

you can pretty much accomplish

whatever you need to accomplish.

Off to your right side is Teterboro Airport,

you wanna try and make Teterboro?

We're gonna be in the Hudson.

The landing in the Hudson

took training and skill.

It also took a bit of luck.

We had a very clear day,

we had a perfect condition for the river.

So there was just a series of really fortunate events

that occurred that assisted this crew

in landing successfully on the river.

At the Safety Board, we don't really deal

in miracles very often, but this event had a lot of things

that came together at the right time and the right place.

And so a lot of us are thinking,

well, maybe we do have a miracle here.

What a view of the Hudson today.