How All Passengers Survived the Miracle on the Hudson

January 2009, US Airways Flight 1549 departs New York's LaGuardia Airport. There are 150 passengers on board bound for Charlotte, North Carolina. The aircraft took off uneventfully. And very shortly after takeoff they lost all engines as a result of birds. I caught something out of the corner of my eye and slightly to our right, but still ahead of us was a line of-- Birds. And they were very, very close, too close for us to maneuver around. Whoa! NARRATOR: After quickly assessing the situation, Captain Sully Sullenberger and first officer Jeffrey Skiles realized that without engine power they're not going to make it to any nearby airport. We're going to be in the Hudson. Brace for impact. Stay down! You need to be aware of your brace position. And in many, many accidents, the cabin crew are trying desperately to get the passengers into the brace position. But because the passengers haven't read the safety features card, they don't know what that means. Get your heads down and stay down. NARRATOR: Proper brace position is knees together, feet flat on the floor, body bend as far forward as possible with arms wrapped under the legs or braced against the seat in front of you. Your body's going to be thrown forward, so if you can get yourself into that position before hand, the amount of movement back and forth is going to be reduced, and the level of injury will be less. NARRATOR: 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. Brace. NARRATOR: Clay Presley does what all passengers should, he stays calm and tries to think ahead. So I started thinking about, if we're going to 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 in and get the doors open if you can. NARRATOR: But before anyone can escape, they must first survive a high speed impact. Looked like the airplane was going right for the bottom of the Hudson River. Then the airplane popped up. And it was just sort of gently rocking in the waves. NARRATOR: 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. You land in the Hudson in the middle of the winter, the water is going to be very cold and you're going to suffer from hypothermia very quickly. Their feet in their hands will get numb. They're going to be useless. NARRATOR: Passengers nearest the exits open the doors. 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. Fortunately, they have slide rafts rather than just slides. So what they were able to do was evacuate passengers into the slide rafts. NARRATOR: In the end, all 150 passengers and the entire crew flight 1549 are brought to safety. Another example of how serious aviation accidents often end well.

Channel: Smithsonian Channel

Views: 21,979,141

Keywords: Miracle on the Hudson, Sully Sullenberger, air disasters, air crash, mayday, Flight 1549, river, video, miracle, emergency landing, documentary, Sully, passengers, US Airways, flight, LaGuardia, Hudson, Hudson River, bird, bird collision, evacuation, flight control, Smithsonian, engine, new york, emergency, North Carolina, Charlotte, facts, slide rafts, co-pilot, TV online, captain, Captain Sully, crash investigation, land on river, survivors, injury, pilot, pilots, flights

Id: 4v7kASXPQMc

Length: 3min 53sec (233 seconds)

Published: Sun Apr 12 2015