Why the river?

It makes me wonder. With so many airports just seconds away, the pilot
chooses water. Can't wait to hear why.

On Jan 16, 7:51*pm, wrote:
It makes me wonder. With so many airports just seconds away, the pilot
chooses water. Can't wait to hear why.

darn, this message was supposed to be in an existing thread. I'll try
this again

wrote in message
...
It makes me wonder. With so many airports just seconds away, the pilot
chooses water. Can't wait to hear why.

He had virtually NO power. It would have taken too long to get clearance
from any airport.

"Sharx35" wrote in
news:z4ccl.5315$Db2.2133@edtnps83:

He had virtually NO power. It would have taken too long to get
clearance from any airport.

In an emergency, clearances are not required.

--

Sharx35 wrote:

He had virtually NO power. It would have taken too long to get clearance
from any airport.


Until the NTSB releases factual findings, we can only speculate. People
are proclaiming the pilots as heroes, but they *may* be in fault. Same
thing happened to the Transat 330 glider into the azores. Pilots were
initially hailed as heroes, and the village where the captain was born
even erected a status in his honour.

But when the report came out, it was revealed that the crew broke
transport canada regulatios and activated cross flow valve on a twin
when they know one side had problems and they forgot to check the
rapidly ddecreasing fuel levels in the good tank because of theur
action. In essence, they dumped fuel overboard.

So one needs to be careful this early. The fact is that the pilots
landed on the river with no fatalities. Consider the possibility where
they had a bird strike on one engine, and mistakenly shut off the other
engine.

In terms of clearance from airport, I have to assume that ATC would have
procedures in place to quickly vacate airspace to let a plane in areal
emergency land. But for a plane to have had enough altitude/speed to
reurn to LGA, it would have been far enough away to give the airport
time to prepare.


Once they get the FDR and CVRs they should be able to provide some real
factual information fairly quickly on exactly what happened to cause
aircraft to be forced to lose altitude.

Once they recover the engines, they should be able to tell relatively
quickly if both engines suffered damage while thrust was applied and
whether one was still running when it hit water.

What is strange is that passengers didn't report strange noises or lack
thereof after the supposed bang.

When both engines fail, the RAT would deploy and that noise would be
very different from en engine.

"Cyrus Afzali" wrote in message
...
On Fri, 16 Jan 2009 16:51:14 -0800 (PST), wrote:

It makes me wonder. With so many airports just seconds away, the pilot
chooses water. Can't wait to hear why.

Seconds? You've got to be kidding me? The only airport that was a
legitimate option at that location is a general aviation airport in
Teterboro, N.J. It handles business jet traffic, but not commercial.

LaGuardia, Newark and JFK are all both more than seconds away for a
plane that has no power. Really, this isn't that hard.

And you know for a fact that the airplane was at an altitude,
orientation, and distance from a clear runway so as to ensure
a safe landing? You further know for a fact that all flight controls
were operating normally at the time the decision re where to
set the plane down was made?

I always love the Monday-morning quarterbacking that goes
on here in situations like this, generally from persons whose
closest approach ever to an airplane cockpit comes when
the leave the jetway on the way to their middle seat in row
37...


Bob M.

On Jan 16, 8:16*pm, "Sharx35" wrote:
wrote in message

... It makes me wonder. With so many airports just seconds away, the pilot
chooses water. Can't wait to hear why.

He had virtually NO power. It would have taken too long to get clearance
from any airport.

I thought he had clearance to land at LaGuardia Airport, as well as
Teterboro Airport.

Michael

On Jan 16, 5:51*pm, wrote:
It makes me wonder. With so many airports just seconds away, the pilot
chooses water. Can't wait to hear why.

My guess is that he would not have made to an airport, even though as
you say there are tons just seconds away from where he landed. He of
may saw them, as being just a few seconds to far away.

Michael

wrote:

My guess is that he would not have made to an airport,


This is a guess. And *probably* correct. But consider the geography of
the hudson and bridges that cross it. There is also a bend to the river
at the lincoln tunnel.

It is possible that the pilot decided to bleed altitude in order to land
on a clear/straight stretch of river. Consider also that there may have
been some ships downriver which would obstruct his path forcing him to
land earlier than he had to.

The NTSB will undoubtedly have some fancy simulations to show whether
the plane had enough energy to make it to teterboro or not. It might
show that it might have been able to reach the land, but not align to
any runway.

But it is doubtful that the pilots would have had tools to tell them if
they could reach or not. At the time of loss of engines, the hudson may
have been the only solution that was viable to them. Well' have to wait
for the NTSB report for this.

Remember that the hudson between the washington bridge and the bend
atthe lincoln tunnel offers a clear path that is orders of magnitudes
longer and wider than what teterboro could offer.

And more importantly, they would have plenty of time to align to the
river and not worry about reaching the threshold.

The CVR, if we're allowed to read the transcripts, will reveal what sort
of thinking process went on to go through their options and settle on
the hudson.

Water or another airport...it is not important, everybody
survived...including my uncle...

http://www.limoradar.com