All the news this morning seems focused on that miraculous plane landing yesterday on the Hudson, and it really is pretty impressive what that pilot pulled off. I will leave it to the oddsmakers to figure out what the chances are of something like that happening with no fatalities, but I would bet they are pretty long odds. The crew deserves a hand, too, as it appears they had those people out of there in an orderly fashion in no time. All of this has been said before, and probably better, so let me move to the things that I find interesting.
1.) The NTSB is sending 20 people to investigate the wreck. I am not sure what it is, but I am fascinated by these guys (and talk about them every chance I get). My question- what do they do all year when there are not big crashes like this? Are they folks who have other jobs and are on call? Or are there enough wrecks of minor note that they are kept busy that way until the big one?
2.) The plane apparently had something called a ditch switch, which the pilot his in situations just like this one and the entire underbelly of the plane is then sealed. That is why the plane was especially buoyant. Are these on most planes? The last time I flew, I remembered thinking to myself that the airlines must have spent billions of dollars on design and engineering on all the little safety things that, in the life of a plane, will probably never ever get used, but sure do make a difference when you need it. This seems to be one of them. At any rate, about that ditch switch- never heard of it before. Any pilots out there who can elaborate?
3.) I can not believe more folks have not had to be treated for hypothermia. The bitter cold and the water yesterday seems like a classic case of the Siberian dilemma.
DBrown
A ditch switch – only know about the ones on small planes and it is used to lock the landing gear up in place. As for floating, most of the big jets are presurized so they do float (for a while if they are not broken.)
The skill of this pilot to land such a fast aircraft into water without damage or worse was amazing and merits great praise.
Bobby Thomson
The NTSB folks do have other jobs, but they are probably all closely-related jobs. One of them used to be a now-deceased professor at Eastern Michigan U., who taught in their aviation management technologies program. (My wife was a student.)
Axe Diesel Palin
It is also amazing that he ditched right in an active commuter ferry area. The first ferry was there in three minutes.
lutton
re: hypothermia
We were watching local new out of NYC, and FDNY/EMS and local hospitals were definitely treating people for hypothermia.
re: ditch switch
not sure–I haven’t heard of this before, but I imagine that it entails shutting off/closing any active ventilation or other air circulation systems to limit the speed of water enfiltration. Remember that planes are pressure sealed for flight levels of 35k – 40k feet (and contrary to some myth, the cargo is sealed too, or your pets would pass out, freeze and die when transported in that area). Being sealed to keep air in would certainly help keep water out.
Lavocat
The "Siberian Dilemma"? Okay, I’ll bite.
As for NTSB, they are all desk-jockeys most of the time. Big-brain types that like to simulate shit to a fare-thee-well.
Pretty cool job and the pay is quite good. Think CSI for aircraft.
Krista
That’s what impressed me too — that he managed not to collide with the large number of commuter ferries, sightseeing boats, etc. that hang around the Hudson.
I supposed that’s why it irked me a bit when I heard one survivor going on and on about thanking the Lord, etc., and not one word of praise to the incredible skills and cool head of the pilot.
ccham44
Many, many commendations to the pilot for making the right decisions quickly, keeping his head and allowing his training to take over. He literally saved 150 lives.
The same to the crew and passengers for getting themselves out of a hellish situation quickly and orderly.
However, what I can’t stand is the talking heads that call it a "miracle" that the plane stayed together and was able to float long enough to get everyone off. No, it wasn’t an f’ing miracle! It was at least 100,000 man-hours of research, design and testing that built a machine that supposed to do that, with another who-knows-how-many hours of science research backing up that design.
I heard some anchor (maybe on MSNBC) talk about that being a miracle and almost lost it. Another example of the lack of respect for science and engineering among many parts of the population.
Call it a miracle (if that’s you’re persuasion) that it happened in one of the busiest waterways in the world, so that help showed up quickly. But don’t call it a miracle that a piece of technology that many people spent their entire careers creating worked like it was supposed to.
John Cole
@Lavocat: It is so cold that if you fall through the ice into the water, you will die in x seconds. If you get out, the wind chill when you are wet will kill you in Y seconds.
Either way, you are crewed.
ccham44
Duplicate post deleted
Comrade Scrutinizer
Apparently the "ditch switch" is specific to the Airbus A320/340.
When the switch is triggered, outflow valves, the avionics ventilation overboard valve, cargo compartment valves, pack flow control valves, and the cargo compartment isolation valves all close, and the cabin fans stop. Basically it allows the pilot to push the Big Red Switch, instead of pushing a bunch of little red switches to help seal the aircraft.
Comrade Scrutinizer
@ccham44:
What you said. And you didn’t need to delete the duplicate, because it should be said twice. At least.
Creamy Goodness
It’s remarkable that the pilot, with no engine power and thus limited maneuverability, managed to land that plane on the water in one piece without tearing off the Airbus A320’s wing-mounted engines.
In 1996, an Ethiopian Airlines Boeing 767 went down in the ocean just off of Comoros after running out of fuel (because doped-up hijackers insisted on flying to Australia). The wing-mounted engines caught on the water and the plane broke up. A tourist caught the crash on video.
jon
The NTSB guys are probably working all the time because the big crashes are investigated so thoroughly, part by part, that those guys always can go to a warehouse somewhere and look at coupling 74A from plane crash 4082M and examine it in relation to coupling 614Q from crash 984S and determine whether or not it buckled within spec 5438Zrevision83b or if the regs need to be updated. And then they get to write the report and recommendations to the committee.
I imagine those nerds have saved my life countless times. And I thank them.
Rick Massimo
They call it a miracle because to call it "the result of thousands of hours of grunt work by those bureaucrats and nerds we spend the other 364 days of the year making fun of" would just be too embarrassing.
Evolutionary
The skill of the pilot and controllers is wonderful. The plane turned west over mid-town Manhattan and just cleared the George Washington bridge by 900 feet! A crash in either location would have been a major disaster.
maxbaer (not the original)
Apparently, the pilot of this plane did accident investigations himself.
Evolutionary
duplicate removed
Michael D.
I’m not sure about this, but I think I’ve heard something about “what they do the rest of the year”.
I THINK they all have other jobs, don’t they? They inspect airplanes, boats and ships, buses, other forms of transportation all year round. That’s what I’ve heard anyway.
Plus, you don’t hear about them, but there are transportation accidents every day, so they are always doing something.
MikeJ
I’m no expert, so if there is one around, feel free to correct me, but: the A320 is fly by wire. No power doesn’t mean limited manoeuverability, it means none. Except that there’s a fan that pops out of the belly and spins in the wind, producing power, which lets you move the control surfaces.
Peter J
Here’s another one 18 years ago.
Lots of similarities, both airliners reached an altitude of 3000 feet, lost both of their engines and thanks to the captains there were no fatalities.
Cathy W
On the hypothermia – the NPR reporter on the scene last night was saying that most of the passengers were taken directly off the planes onto boats, and were only wet up to the knees, but some passengers were being treated.
And there seem to be somewhere between 3-5 plane accidents requiring NTSB involvement on a daily basis, sometimes a lot more. They post all investigation reports online if anyone is curious.
Skepticat
Amazing that a crash landing could be good news. Hope the pilot and crew are well rewarded for their skill and professionalism.
I agree completely with ccham44’s sentiments and *love* Rick Massimo’s line.
El Cid
Wait — now isn’t it time for one of those "contrarian" essays by a "libertarian" on how somehow this event proves we need fewer airline / airliner regulations and need to get rid of unions?
After all, if all you have is a hammer…
Punchy
Hero or not, expect at least a dozen lawsuits claiming some legalesed claim of pilot error and/or airline malfesance.
Lawyers can be scumbags.
mistermix
If you look at the NTSB website, there’s a search function that lets you look at all the incidents they’re investigating. Small plane crashes and near-accidents make up the bulk of their work. They also have long-term safety investigations and hearings, such as one next month on EMS helicopter safety.
Also, it’s possible that the First Officer was flying the plane, since the Captain and FO usually trade off flying duties. In any event, when the voice transcript is released, I’m sure it will show two professionals working together as a well-practiced team. The industry buzzword for this is "CRM" – Crew Resource Management.
The "hero pilot" scenarios put forward by the media are the opposite of current industry practice. Big-ego Captains have caused many a crash in the past, and one of the tenets of CRM is that the Captain buries his ego and takes input from the First Officer.
cleek
anyone else notice that just days before, we were seeing all kinds of articles about the amazing run of luck (w.r.t. crashes) US airlines have had in the past few years ?
ChrisB
@ccham44: Thank you. All those references to the landing and rescue being a "miracle" really bothered me. It was skill, training, design, initiative, courage, etc. – all human qualities and characteristics – that saved the day.
I hope the Flying Spaghetti Monster doesn’t strike me down for saying this.
lutton
The plane turned west over mid-town Manhattan and just cleared the George Washington bridge by 900 feet!
Geographically that doesn’t work, unless he flew north on the Hudson, which he didn’t.
The plane departed runway 4 (40º E of N) and headed NW over the Bronx. The plane turned southerly basically over Fordham University, and headed down river.
You can watch a graphical replay of the takeoff and ditching at http://www4.passur.com/lga.html Use the replay mode and set the clock for Jan 15 15:26. Watch for the general aviation aircraft (a helicopter it seems) having an ‘oh, shit’ moment coming north on the Hudson.
I found that passur site via this forum which has more info on the ditch switch (with pix and diagrams): http://www.nycaviation.com/forum/us-airways-a320-down-in-nyc-hudson-river-t14729s75.html-sid=9953a041737ef94781303a0880fa122e
TheHatOnMyCat
Speaking as a commercial pilot and flight instructor …. I’m still shaking my head over what an awesome job these guys did. If there is an Oscar-Golden Globe-Nobel Prize-Pulitzer for great flying, they just won it.
TheHatOnMyCat
In many years of studying this subject, I must say, that is one of the biggest crocks of shit I ever read. Seriously. Absolute bullshit. I don’t know of any information available right now that would make sense out of your post. CRM is not about big egos, it’s about a management paradigm and best use of resources.
ChrisB
@MikeJ: I heard this morning that, yes, the A320 is fly by wire and that the pilots had command of all control surfaces (flaps, etc.). The one thing the pilots didn’t have was, of course, the engines, which can aid in maneuvering a plane into a landing.
lutton
Also, the George Washington Bridge is shown on sectional maps as having a height of 624′ (I assume the towers not the road deck). The plane passed the GWB at about 1000′ – although it looked to be east of the bridge and river as it passed rather than directly overhead – leaving somewhere around 400′ of vertical clearance.
Tattoosydney
I think Fuckhead’s riff off bey’s comment deserves a repost…
mistermix
@TheHatOnMyCat:
That’s Al Haynes’ bullshit, not mine.
dave
"Hero or not, expect at least a dozen lawsuits claiming some legalesed claim of pilot error and/or airline malfeasance.
Lawyers can be scumbags."
Ah yes, blame the lawyers. I love how you say this with such conviction even though you have absolutely no idea whether there was any airline malfeasance or pilot error in this case.
So if the pilots of this plane were smoking crack during the flight, and the airline hired untrained illegal immigrants to inspect the machinery prior to take off the passenger should not be bale to recover for their property loss, physical injuries, and unimaginable terror since no one died.
Maybe we should go back to the glibertarian paradise of the early 20th century when, for example, Chicago residents were struck and killed by trains on a daily basis.
Robin G.
Thank God everything turned out well on this, and as has been said already (but should be said again), the brilliance of the pilot and the plane engineers cannot be overstated.
The plane was taken down by, what, a goose? Just out of curiosity (and this is in seriousness, because I am SO very much not an engineer), how can a plane be designed to survive a water landing without sinking, but can’t be designed to survive acts of geese? I assume there must be a reason, but I don’t know what it is.
4tehlulz
That’s an odd way to spell "Tenerife".
TheHatOnMyCat
Haynes is fine, and google is your friend. Read up on CRM and judge for yourself. It’s about the management model followed by a crew as a way to improve situational awareness and make best use of resources. It is not about "big egos." And it’s not just about aviation, it is being applied across a wide range of crew or team situations many of which have nothing to do with aviation.
Haynes is not talking about "big egos," he is talking about a management model that wasn’t effective. While the term "human error" is often used in connection with the subject, it’s a misstatement to say that CRM was a response to human error. It’s a response to best use of humans in stressful situations so as to optimize the results, much more subtle and comprehensive than just reducing "human error."
Primarily, it’s about training and preparation, and following protocols that have the best chance of success.
The Other Steve
This morning on the radio they mentioned that the pilot… Chesley Sullenberger is a former fighter pilot with 40 years flight experience. He’s a visiting scholar at the UC Berkeley Center for Catastrophy Management, works as an accident investigator and has a consulting company which helps companies better plan for safety.
Basically if there was a guy you wanted flying that plane, he was it.
In this age of mass incompetence, it’s nice to every once in a while have an example of someone doing everything right.
cleek
we do spend a lot of money on making them goose-proof (aka avoiding bird strike)
for example, the Chicken Gun!
KRK
Unfortunately for them, part of that reward will no doubt involve being interviewed by the idiots on TV morning shows and cable "news" programs.
Robin G.
Yeah, cleek, I realized that after a few minutes. I typed out my post, then saw that it was a lot more sarcastic and sharp (and disrespectful to the plane designers) than I meant it to be, and edited it up to say what I was really intending.
Lesson of the day: Don’t post before coffee.
The Other Steve
If stuff enters the engine it can damage the blades on the fan, compressor, turbine, etc.
It’s not uncommon to lose one engine on a plane. This is why they have two engines at least. With one engine they can make an emergency landing at a nearby airport. you never hear about those landings on the news.
This was different because they lost both engines.
Aramink
@Lutton:
Thanks for the link to the LaGuardia monitor. It’s fascinating to watch, especially that aircraft with the "oh, shit" moment.
mistermix
@TheHatOnMyCat
You don’t think van Zanten’s big ego had anything to do with Tenerife?
At the risk of being accused of the crime of googling, here’s the first couple of sentences from the CRM Wiki entry:
I’ll agree that "human error" isn’t a very informative term, and ego isn’t the only issue in cockpit relationships. But it’s pretty clear that CRM was a response to accidents caused by humans, not equipment.
demimondian
@cleek: Actually, we don’t try to avoid bird-strike; we try to minimize the effects. A commenter above talked about the Ethiopian Airlines crash in 1996, where the engines came off. That’s true — if the engines had been ripped off, there would have been a fire, for instance. It’s also important that the engines didn’t explode — there’s a boatload of hard-core engineering that goes into every modern passenger plane to design and install the Kevlar jacket that runs around the fan which contains it in the event of "sudden massive structural failure".
You test for sudden massive structural failure with the turkey gun, if you’re interested. The usual cause is…bird-strike.
I’m amazed at the crew bringing the beast in flat. I’m astounded that they didn’t hit anyone on the ground. And I’m still wowed at the engineers and bureaucrats who painstakingly built up failure models over a century so that when this particular crisis happened, other people could save the day at all.
Robin G.
How did they lose two engines? Two birds? (I’m reading the AP articles, but they’re very "miracle" oriented and I’m having trouble picking out the facts…)
Capri
Sullenberger is a Purdue graduate, so he’s getting a lot of attention around my neck of the woods (West Lafayette, Indiana). He was the last to leave the plane and walked the aisles twice to check that everyone else was off before leaving himself.
This is the first water crash on record with 0 fatalities. While that is not a miracle the way winning Powerball is not a miracle – it is certainly more than what anyone can expect/hope for even given the millions of hours engineers and others have put into ensuring safe flights.
Also, the Siberian paradox kicks in with temperatures in the -40 range, not when it’s just cold.
demimondian
@Robin G.: A flock of birds. Migrating geese fly in formation, you know… :)
If you can find it, go watch the Boeing puff piece on the 777. They show the effect of a bird strike on the engine during take-off. The fan, going 15K RPM, tears itself to shreds in a few milliseconds. The A320 is a smaller plane, but the effect is similarly dramatic, I’m sure.
Napoleon
That was my understanding. Because the nose of the plane was up as he climbed the pilot likely did not see what he hit but my understanding is the speculation is that he likely ran into and entire flight of geese and at least one managed to get into each engine.
The Other Steve
I don’t know what the Siberian paradox is.
All I know is that I once fell through the ice on the lake and it was COLD! COLD COLD COLD! DAMN COLD!
jibeaux
You know, guys, small point, but "miraculous" can also be a way of saying "really amazing and unusual" or "wow, the odds were sure against that, weren’t they?" It doesn’t, to me anyway, necessarily imply divine intervention and I don’t think it has to imply any lack of credit to the pilot, design, research, etc.
flounder
ccham. Thanks. My wife looked on me with a look of awe and disgust as I finally flew off the handle last night, ranting about fairies and unicorns and pixie dust, at the 80th mention of this being a "miracle".
The disrespect for science, engineering, and training is all part of the ongoing effort to keep people stupid.
jibeaux
I have not, but I definitely had the reaction of "OMG if I had to stand up to my shins in 38 degree water in air in the 20s I would lose my shit very, very quickly. I’d be thrilled to be alive and all, but that would only keep my shit intact for about 20 seconds." I am a total cold wimp. People with kids with them would be trying to figure out how to simultaneously hold them out of the water while covering their ears.
jibeaux
I mean, I have heard sportscasters describe a comeback or an unlikely shot as miraculous more times than I can count. I don’t think they’re trying to say, "since that player clearly has no talent whatsoever, it can only be the hand of God which directed that three pointer."
Halteclere
Exactly put, CCHAM:
Here’s a video of a wing test of the Boeing 777.
In a related video of the Boeing 787 wing, the narrator says that a large team of designers and staff took five years of design to reach the point of performing this test to validate their models.
But only God keeps wings attached to planes (snark).
TheHatOnMyCat
Yes, it’s a misnomer really in this context. The common understanding of human error is the "oh shit, I shoulda done B instead of A" sort of thing. But in this context, it’s really about process failure, where the crewmember does A because the process and his training led him to make a less than optimal choice.
A lot has been made of the Van Zanten thing, but the failure there was less about him and more about the really dysfunctional crew management model that was in place before CRM. And of course there also other complicating circumstances, such as communication under stress between crew and ATC, as well as between each other. I don’t think it’s fair to pin Tenerife on one guy, when it was a complex system and process failure. It was a time when the complexity of the circumstances exceeded the capacity of the processes to handle those circumstances.
So in that sense, I’ll also agree with you that the "hero pilot" scenario belongs to that old model of how things were done.
In this USAir case, though, the job of putting that airplane down in the river so perfectly is probably about a really fabulous job of flying, don’t you think?
Robin G.
Excellent. Thanks, guys. demimondian, I’ll look up that video. I’d like to be informed on this subject, because while I don’t have television, the number of "thank Jesus for this miracle!" status updates appearing on Facebook is beginning to grate on me.
TheHatOnMyCat
The baby Jesus is not smiling.
TheHatOnMyCat
The effect on the bird is similar to what we hope will happen to the Eagles this weekend.
Heh.
ksmiami
But it turns out the captain is a UNION MEMBER so I wonder if Red state heads will explode. I mean Unions don’t serve any purpose doncha know!
CIRCVS MAXIMVS MMIX
I’m under the impression Bush might just decide to render all geese endangered right before he leaves office to assure this never happens again, and then send Cheney on a hunting trip.
mistermix
Yes – whoever was flying did a wonderful job.
And I agree that there was a lot more at work at Tenerife than just van Zanten’s ego, starting with the bomb at the bigger airport (grand canary?) that set the whole chain of events off.
CIRCVS MAXIMVS MMIX
The baby Jesus would never save a union member, I guess it was really just terrific flying.
anonevent
Here’s most of the NPR story on it. It has a lot of the facts as far as NPR knows them.
If you listen to the audio, they also talk about how there are now at least 11 facebook fan club pages dedicated to the captain.
TheHatOnMyCat
@mistermix:
With all this agreement, I feel a little out of my element.
Nothing left to do but say, I think I misread the intent of your post upstream. To the bar! The drinks are on me.
TheHatOnMyCat
I know, Jesus is a Republican. The last eight years have made that perfectly clear!
El Cid
@Napoleon: Perhaps we’re soon to be introduced to the single-bird theory. It went back… and to the left. Baaaack… and to the left…
eyepaddle
I’d like to second (well, really probably up to eighth or ninth) the sentiment that the plane held together because of a combination of research, engineering and yes, strict regulation and enforcement of safety in design, maintenance, and operation of airliners.
And then you pair that up with ice-water-in-the-veins-balls-out-steelly-focused-aviators at the stick and this is a happy ending.
@TheHatOnMyCat, during a situation like this how do they split up labor in the cockpit? All the reports speak of the heroic pilot (and no doubt he was) but I am pretty sure the first officer was doing more than just watching the action.
And just to make sure nobody gets completely left out, it sounds like the cabin crew really stepped up and earned their pay in leading the evacuation of the plane.
Flawless teamwork is a real jewel to see.
TheHatOnMyCat
@El Cid:
That was some magic
lugiegoose!cleek
of course we do.
i’d post more links, but that would trip the filter. still, it’s easy enough to Google "avoiding bird strike".
joe from Lowell
All of these deserved kudos to the pilot(s) for how they landed the plane shouldn’t make us overlook the very effective job the crew did in getting 150 people off the plane, without panic, without trampling, without anyone left behind, even as the back end sunk into the water, sealing those doors.
TheHatOnMyCat
@eyepaddle:
My guess would be that the second officer was dividing his time between helping get the cabin and aircraft ready for the water landing, and helping the captain as much as possible, probably calling out airspeeds and altitudes, watching for traffic (in the air and on the river) ….. I imagine they were extraordinarily busy in that last two minutes. Working their butts off, basically.
Don K
I’ve never been on a flight that’s encountered anything worse than crosswinds and turbulence on landing, but those few flights made me grateful there’s a professional up front. Commercial aircraft are reliable enough that pilot error shows up in a greater percentage of crashes these days (e.g., here and here). During the routine flights it’s easy to think to think "hey, I could do this". Incidents like this are reminders that I couldn’t, at least without lots of training that makes responses to emergency situations second-nature.
And no, I’m not a commercial pilot, nor am I related to one, nor am I even a casual acquaintance of one. There just are times when I’m in awe of them, and this is one of them.
And yes, kudos to the FA’s and pilots for getting the passengers out. The cabin crew really is there for safety first.
Brian J
As far as the cost goes, there’s probably either (a) a very high return rate on investment on the little things that don’t add much to the cost of a plane overall but can get used in many different types of planes and/or (b) a lot of cover by a general unaware public who assumes that a lot of money being spent even in the event of something not working all the time or even being necessary all of the time and therefore thinks it’s safe to fly, leading to no drop off in revenues.
JR
@ksmiami: And apparently, he’s had some dealings with UC Berkeley! He could be a commie.
Adrienne
@TheHatOnMyCat: Speak for yourself. I’m hoping the Eagles chop up the Cardinals like a Canadian goose outside LaGuardia. And I am NOT alone.
bootlegger
@eyepaddle: Another vote for here for the efficacy of government regulation and individual skill over "teh miracle". As annoying as those pre-flight instructions are, those folks in the exit rows apparently got the doors open immediately.
bootlegger
@Adrienne: I second the motion that the Cards will grind the Eagles like a bird strike. I never cared for the Iggles or their fans, who by the way were calling for the coach’s and QB’s heads just five weeks ago. Wankers.
Jon H
" My question- what do they do all year when there are not big crashes like this?"
I assume their investigations take a while as they assemble all the documentation.
Also, they do other kinds of crashes. Train crashes, etc.
Evinfuilt
I know its unrelated to this accident, but at many airports they use dogs to keep the birds away, which of course reduces bird strikes.
I just love how a dog can earn such an important job, and yet I’m sure there will be millions of dollars wasted on some new high tech laser beams to shoot down all geese within 10 miles of an airport ;)
Cain
@The Other Steve:
I expect business to improve. He’s just proved that he not only can talk the talk, but can do the walk. The man must have nerves of steel.
cain
jibeaux
*sigh*
I can’t believe I’m continuing to make an issue of this, but I really don’t think casually referring to it as miraculous implies that the pilot wasn’t skilled or government regulations were unnecessary. This is not an either-or thing. Even given a fantastic pilot and a super-duper plane, it certainly seems that a great deal of luck was involved in getting the plane landed without serious injuries, on a busy waterway without injuring anyone, in a trafficked area so that people could be rescued quickly before there were serious hypothermia injuries, etc., etc. It was sort of the anti-Titanic, where lots of factors aligned to produce a good result, and it’s pretty amazing. How often do you hear about a plane making a water landing after losing engines and having a 100% survival rate?
I’m sure there are people who think it’s Jesus And Only Jesus who brought that plane down safely, but John himself called it miraculous in the post and I’m not really thinking that’s what he meant by it. I mean, just because you’re on a blog doesn’t mean you have to find something to be outraged about, does it? I may not be aware of all internet traditions any more, though.
Tattoosydney
Posted without comment. Hee.
Cain
@Capri:
Now, that’s professionalism. And he’s from my alma mater, double coolness.
cain
TheHatOnMyCat
Yes, you are. You are totally alone, adrift, asea, marooned on an island of football despair. Abandon hope all ye who enter there.
The eagles will be stuffed, seasoned, roasted, and served with gravy. We shall pick our teeth with the bones of eagles. Next week, eagle soup and eagle sandwiches.
Ah, them eagles …. they’re good eatin’!
The Other Steve
Perhaps he was trying to land the plane on the deck of the Intrepid?
David Hunt
I know that it is common at State of the Union speeches for the President to point out outstanding Americans. Does anyone know if that is done at Inauguration speeches? The entire crew of that plane definitely deserve it. I have heard that the Captain personally waked up and down the plane (twice!) checking for anyone who might have been left behind. I don’t know how long the thing actually stayed afloat after they got all the people off, but I’m pretty sure that he couldn’t have known how long it would stay up either. Even if it was his duty, it still deserves recognition.
The Other Steve
During a major flood, a man was standing on the roof of his home praying to God to save him. A man in a canoe rowed by and asked the man "Jump in, and I’ll row you to shore." The man on the roof responded "Thank you, but God shall save me." The canoe rowed on to the next house.
A while later a fishing boat came by and asked the man "Jump in, and I’ll take you to shore." The man on the roof responded "Thank you, but God shall save me." The fishing boat went on to the next house.
A while later the water was over the top of the house, but the man still held on praying. A Helicopter saw him and they shouted down "grab the rope, and we’ll save you." The man on the roof responded "Thank you, but God shall save me." The helicopter left.
A while later the water washed the man off the house and he drowned. He found himself at the gates of Heaven and he demanded of St. Peter, "I prayed and prayed and prayed and yet God did not come to save me. Why did you forsake me?"
St. Peter responded, "What are you talking about? We sent you a canoe, a fishing boat and a helicopter."
Laura W
@bootlegger:
Which is why I have so appreciated wise and capable men asking me to switch seats with them when I happen to be seated next to emergency doors.
God Bless Men Who Are Good in Emergencies.
(Women too, but they don’t make me swoon as much.)
(Not "God" in the miracle dispensing sense, but God as in…um…whatever.)
Andrew
The Siberian dilemma most certainly occurs in temperatures well above -40 degrees.
You can survive for a while in near freezing water if you avoid the initial shock, but you will soon lose limb function and be unable to self-rescue.
Once you’re out of the water, and wet, you will also lose heat quickly. It’s recommended that you immediately shed all clothing and dry yourself in the snow, which is also insulating.
jake 4 that 1
Man, when a co-worker told me a plane had gone into the Hudson, all I could think of was the 14th Street bridge. I was certain anyone who didn’t die in the crash had frozen to death in seconds.
So all I can say is: Wow.
Plus it’s obvious there were no dirty islahomoabortionists on the plane.
People who misunderestimate the distance between the train and the crossing keep them busy.
MikeJ
Thousands of dentists across the country fly general aviation. There’s plenty of wrecks to keep ’em busy.
mistermix
@TheHatOnMyCat
Ha! Don’t worry, it’s a blog comments section — I’m sure you’ll feel at home momentarily.
Nicole
Ah yes, I remember the time I was hit by a police cruiser while I was rollerblading and before I knew it a lawyer showed up at my apartment, tied up my roommates, put a gun to my head and said, "You will retain me to represent you as you sue the police department or I will shoot you."
It’s not the lawyers who make the decision to sue; it’s the people involved. I’m sure lawyers are happy to take the case and make some money, but they can’t sue for themselves.
You’re right; there will be a lot of suing going on, but it’s not right to blame the lawyers.
Napoleon
And I guess he was even an officer in the union.
Also on the front page of the Great Orange Satan a poster says he was certified on gliders also, which must have come in handy yesterday.
Charity
@The Other Steve:
The guy is clearly an ELITIST!
jibeaux
Here’s what trial lawyers consider when determining whether or not to accept a case, typically in this order (although this is the reverse order from which one should consider):
1) Damages. If there are little or no damages, 33% of little or nothing is little or nothing. Ixnay. Barring possibly the person with two broken legs and possibly viable psychological claims, large damages do not appear to be present here.
2) Liability. Nothing I’ve read so far indicates non-avian liability for the accident. Maybe something will come up, but commercial flight is not a strict liability venture. Believe it or not, you actually are supposed to show fault or negligence on the part of the defendants.
Someone will probably sue, sure, but they won’t have a whole lot to work with if the original reports of this accident are accurate.
MikeJ
Damages and liability don’t enter into it for half of all trial lawyers. They decide to accept a case when their employer is served.
DarrenG
Having known a few NTSB guys over the years, I can clear up question 1 a bit further:
As mentioned above, the NTSB has permanent staff who do lots of planning, simulation, incident reports, etc. when they’re not crawling through wreckage, or rarely, an intact airframe as in this case.
The 20 person team mentioned will also include a lot of non-NTSB employees who are brought in specifically for a large incident investigation. Pilots, engineers, airline operations folk, and manufacturers’ reps from Airbus, GE, and other relevant companies.
Anyone interested in lots more geeky details about the the incident, the A320 and its ditch switch, and such might want to check out this forum thread:
http://www.pprune.org/archive/index.php/t-358238.html
The Raven
"…lack of respect for science and engineering…"
Lack of awareness. Most people don’t know. And they don’t want to. The miracle, perhaps, is that we think to do these things, and the right crew was in the cockpit.
caroline warner
I had the same thought as yours: what do these guys do all year round?
The Boston Herald says the following (in part):
Plane was specially equipped to stay afloat. –
That’s because it was equipped with a special device unique to Airbus planes that increased the likelihood it would stay on top of the water.
The device, called a "ditching switch," effectively seals the plane by closing valves and ventilation ports, a spokesman for the airline said.
Industry experts said the ditching switch is rarely invoked, as "it’s not as if anyone expects to ditch these planes," said Robert W. Mann, who owns an aviation consulting company.
With the valves and ports shut, "a float line" is created, Airbus spokeswoman Mary Anne Greczyn said in an e-mail.
"The ditching switch closes all of the open ports in the bottom of the fuselage," said Frank Ayers, chairman of the flight training department at Embry Riddle Aeronautical University in Daytona Beach, Fla.
Mann said opening an emergency exit — which happened Thursday when the plane was evacuated — is not a problem as long as the door is above the waterline.
——– I hope this satisfies your curiosity ——–
AhabTRuler
After I saw this on the news, I actually dove into the accident report for the AF crash and I found out that only one passenger drowned. The rest all sustained fatal trauma because of the actual impact. For a number of reasons (the footage of the survivors, the bravery of the one passenger that did drown passing up rescue for others, the image of the rudder protruding from the river) the crash seemed to be more survivable than it was. In actuality, the impact was sever enough to break the aircraft into pieces and kill most of the passengers instantly.
I was surprised. I too had thought that the cold was the major cause of death in that crash.
spartacus
One or more birds and one engine equals incident and minimal drama. Both engines, means an accident and maximum drama.
ccham44
Had to check out for a while. Thanks for the seconing, thirding, fourthing and fifthing my comment.
To the luck vs. devine intervention argument. I wasn’t making a comment about what John said in the post, which I appreciated. I was specifically criticizing someone on MSNBC who was talking about the ability of the plane to survive a water landing and stay afloat as a "miracle".
jibeaux, you’re damn right it was luck that this was the Hudson river, and there were 100 ferry boats within a few thousand feet of the plane. However, it was NOT luck that caused the plane to have a ditch switch.
"Lucky" is only a little better than "miracle". Luck (at least to the average listener) suggests totally random chance. We are not lucky that some designer thought this situation might happen. It’s a result of a methodical system, where a bunch of smart, talented people perform difficult and mind-numbing modeling. You sift through all the data you can find an figure out the probability of everything that could go wrong and then create appropriate systems designed to address those problems and protect people.
As I’ve noted, we barely have words to describe the steel balls that the pilots and the crew and the passengers (and hell, even the ferry boat captains) showed in an incredible performance. However, (yes, as an engineer) it pisses me off how this talking head shit on all the engineers and scientists who worked their asses off to create a system that’s supposed to work like it did by saying it was "luck".
I could give a crap about being on a blog, or being aware of all internet traditions. It’s like if you’ve been a teacher in my town for the last 30 years, and I’m amazed at how lucky that our kids were born so smart… that would probably piss you off too.
P.S. – I don’t mean to sound so hostile. I can tell you guys probably appreciate the designer’s work. This one just touches a nerve.
srv
@Capri: Not the first crash on water with 0 fatalities.
And as far as everyones comments on unbelievable flying, and all this crazy pilot worship, it’s sort of their job. Pilots tend to land with the wings level and the nose up all the time.
A story about decent pilots and modern complexity gone wrong in last months Vanity Fair.
AhabTRuler
And, most of the time, a big mess. A combination of a quality aircraft, well-trained crew (and CRM is important), and a healthy dose of luck.
spartacus
Bugger.
My comment was meant to include a You Tube link which apparently didn’t make it.
Let’s try again:
AhabTRuler
Not the same thing at all. Landing on water creates its own problems, not the least is the tendency for the aircraft to slow dramatically because of the drag, whipsaw, break into pieces and sink rapidly.
Krista
Not the first time a plane has been taken down by a goose.
And yeah, I’ve never flown a commercial plane, just little single-engine stuff. But I cannot even comprehend the titanium cojones it must have taken to keep cool while flying that thing over midtown Manhattan, and to land it in the Hudson with all of those commuter ferries and tour boats nearby, and to get everybody off the plane safely. Every single person on that crew, but especially the pilot, deserves our admiration. They should be used as models for crisis management skills and exemplary teamwork.
demimondian
@The Raven: While this crew may have been better than many, you can ask people who train these folks — TZ, for instance — and they’ll tell you that all aircrews on US carriers, from the flight deck staff to the lowest attendant making coffee — are incredibly highly trained personnel. There was no miracle in this crew; almost any crew could have done the same.
Yes, they really *are* that good.
spartacus
So how do you post links to You Tube on this minimalist blog software?
reality-based
jibeaux –
OT, But I’m back in the old home state of North Dakota, visiting my mom –
temperatures have been thirty to thirty-five degrees below zero every night this week – daytime highs are around 15 degrees below zero –
add in the wind, and you get wind chill factors of 65 below at night, 30 below during the day.
I haven’t been home in the winter in a long time – and I can report that going outside when it’s 35 below is an amazing feeling. (and not in a good way). Siberian dilemma, every damn minute – ice or no ice.
More OT: All week, I’ve been thinking of my ancestors, homesteading up here and spending winters in Sod huts, with cows that needed milking, livestock to feed – and somehow surviving this weather with only coal and wood burning stoves, Kerosene lanterns, and horse-drawn wagons. From this, I concluded that I am a wuss. Also, thanks to the FSM for engineers of all types and persuasions and eras.
One more OT note – I had forgotten thatcars in North Dakota are plugged in during the winter – either head-bolt heaters, to keep the oil warm, or newer heaters that keep the coolant warm)
Which means that when you pull into a motel for the night, there are plug-ins for your car! Rental car lots at the airport have plug-ins.
So I’m just sayin – the infrastructure for electric cars CAN be done.
And
Zuzu's Petals
@TheHatOnMyCat:
Patrick Smith already has an informative piece up over at Salon:
Ask the Pilot
He also points out how often the first officer gets overlooked at times like this. He was likely doing an equal amount of plane wrestling to get the thing down in one piece.
BTW, Smith also did an extensive piece awhile back on what happened at Tenerife. It’s the most thorough discussion I’ve seen…from a layperson’s viewpoint, anyway.
Tenerife 30th Anniversay
jibeaux
@ccham44:
This is one of the dumber arguments I’ve had in a while, but look. When a plane crashes and everyone dies, which is I daresay the more typical end to a double engine failure, does that mean the crew is incompetent? Does it mean the plane wasn’t well designed or as safe as it conceivably have been? Couldn’t this exact plane with a ditch switch and awesome pilot and trained union crew and hell, flux capacitors and dilithium crystals if you like, have gotten further along on its journey and crashed into the Atlantic Ocean (had it been heading that way) or a cornfield and killed everyone?
People are glad, and amazed, and thankful, and joyous that everyone survived. I am sure most people appreciate the conscious and conscientious effort, and identifiable factors that went into it. I don’t think that means that we have to kill the astonished joy people are expressing by insisting this means they hate engineers and science.
This, I don’t even know what means. Is it an internet tradition?
jibeaux
Now, that’s interesting. NC does not have plug-ins for car heaters at motels, needless to say. Maybe the Iceman and the Green Revolution cometh hand in hand, out of Sioux Falls. Maybe you can make electric/snow hybrids for a win/win combo…
Laura W
@Zuzu’s Petals: (pssst…in case you don’t go back, I just posted a thought I had in shower to you at #112 on Seen/Unseen thread.)
srv
@AhabTRuler:
So enlighten us as to what exactly the pilot did differently to personally control the aircraft after impact with the water and prevent those things from happening.
Zuzu's Petals
Ironically, I had just come across a story written by my dad about having to ditch his P-26 in Panama Bay back in ’40 or so.
He’d always been pretty cavalier in the way he described it to us kids; the most he confessed to was deciding it would be rotten to leave his young wife a widow and baby (my now-69-yr-old brother) an orphan.
Well, to read about what it meant to ditch three miles from land, climb out of the cockpit under water, and watch your plane sink out of sight…then swim and float for a couple of hours in shark-infested waters, waiting for the search planes to spot you … whew.
I wish he was still here to talk about it.
srv
@Zuzu’s Petals: One of the coolest looking rides evah. When men where men and sharks didn’t have lasers. I’ve been thinking of painting my kitplane in the pre-war colors, but with polished fuselage to blind the freaking geese and Bonanzas.
AhabTRuler
@srv: Nothing, per se. That’s the luck factor. However, your statement made it seem as if all that was needed was "wings level and the nose up," and everything was going to be OK. I will be interested in the eventual simulator results, to see how reproducible this result is.
As I said before, the initial indications are that it was a combination of a good aircraft, a well-trained crew, and, yes, luck.
Zuzu's Petals
@Laura W:
Saw it and responded. Thanks for the kind words!
Zuzu's Petals
@srv:
My dad really was a consumate airman. Got his Army Air Corps training back in ’38 just out of USMA, and I think he must have flown everything with a propeller. The picture we put on his funeral pamphlet shows him in his leather flyer’s helmet…very Gable-esque.
He told me it was really touch and go with some of the planes they flew in the early days. Sometimes the cockpit would fill up with fumes, the pilot would pass out and that would be that. Just an occupational hazard I guess.
I used to love flying with him in our little four seater when I was little and we lived in Alaska. He taught my brother how to fly up there. At his funeral my brother said he taught him how to take that plane apart and put it back together…and how to "land that thing on floats." (Pontoon landings aren’t so easy, I guess.) It was good training…my brother went to USAFA and was a fighter pilot for several years.
Mnemosyne
I think there’s another factor as well. Let’s face it, since 9/11, I don’t think there’s a single person on Earth who has gotten onto an airplane without thinking about what they would do in a worst-case scenario. A lot more people are taking note of where the exits are, paying attention to the flight attendants’ spiel, etc. People take sitting in the exit row as a potentially serious responsibility, not just a spot to get a little extra leg room.
It may subside after a decade or so, but for right now I think you have a lot of passengers (and flight attendants, and flight crew) who have spent a lot of time thinking about what they would do if something went wrong.
Jager
My wife was a Flight Attendant for 20 years, 5 of those years were spent in the training department. She trained hundreds (maybe thousands) of FAs and Pilots in the very skills we all saw on display yesterday. All the flight crews do recurrent training every year. Including aircraft evacuation techniques under all kinds of conditions. The level of detail goes all the way down to; what tone of voice to use when telling the passengers, what to do, where to go and when to do it! The dummy planes used in training are exactly like the planes in use on the line, the crews role play the part of crew, passengers, etc. They have to line up, jump down the slides, inflate the rafts, in short, they rehearse everything that can and does happen in an aircraft emergency. They rehearse every possible scenario again and again. They are pros, through and through. The FA’s job is all about safety and that is their constant focus! It really paid off yesterday, the Captain did his job and the crew did theirs and they deserve our praise. My wife was so proud, she was crying as she watched the video last night!
AhabTRuler
British Midlands Flight 92 is an example of how the loss of a just a single engine can lead to catastrophe, especially if the crew don’t diagnose the problem correctly or take the appropriate actions
ccham44
What better venue is there for a stupid argument than Balloon Juice? (That is a compliment, of course.) Furthermore, you can’t expect a coherent answer from me on a Friday afternoon.
I don’t know anything, but my point is just "credit where credit is due". This event was a dramatic example of several major successes. The success of people making the right decisions under stress, of a world-class training program, and yes (as I’ve said a couple of times) of being damn lucky. However, it was also a technological success. A few corners (like this guy on the teevee) are portraying this technological success as basically being random chance, when it was really a product of hard work and and science producing a machine that worked the way it was supposed to. They should get their credit too.
We’ve been told too often the last decade that thinking and being smart are bad things. One reason (note: NOT the only reason) nobody died in a plane crash yesterday was because the engineers were smart. This should be an example, not just chalked up to "luck".
TheHatOnMyCat
I’ll check it out. Thanks.
Zuzu's Petals
@TheHatOnMyCat:
I like his stuff. Written so a layperson like me can understand it.
TheHatOnMyCat
They are very very good, as you suggest. The safety record is just damned good … when you consider stuffing a couple hundred people into a tube and hurling them through the air at hundreds of miles an hour.
I admit to being a little prejudiced on this question.
christina
re: My question- what do they do all year when there are not big crashes like this? Are they folks who have other jobs and are on call?
I used to work in the tourism industry and we got air traffic news summaries every morning alerting us of any downed planes. I am talking between 1-5 airplane crashes every day! Usually they are just your cessna or more often yet gliders but yes, those guys are BUSY
Airbus Driver
A few points to clarify from someone who flies them:
Ditching switch: As said before it does close (almost) all holes below the water line (ventilation ports, the outflow valve use for pressurization control, etc.) there are some small ones that it does not affect (battery vent exhausts, and such). The switch is also used during deicing to conveniently close these holes to prevent the deicing fluid from entering the ventilation system of the aircraft.
Control with loss of both engines: The engines have almost nothing to do with maneuverability. Did you know that during decent on every flight the engines are typically at idle anyway? The airplane can generally glide about 3 miles for every thousand feet of altitude, and does not "fall out of the sky" with the loss of engine power.
Running into birds is not uncommon. Usually it’s much smaller birds than geese, such as songbirds, seagulls, etc. They usually cause no more that a splat mark or very small dent. Throwing one or more 20 pound geese into both engines is obviously a different story and very rare.
With the loss of the engines, however, the main source of power for the hydraulic pumps (which provide the movement power for all the flight controls) and all electrical power is lost. There is an emergency Ram Air Turbine (a wind driven fan) that automatically extends in these situations and powers a hydraulic pump to provide hydraulic power for the flight controls. Some limited hydraulic power may have been available from the windmilling engines depending on how badly they were damaged, though It’s obvious the damage was significant.
Battery power and a back up generator provide the electrical power to run the flight control computers and other electrical equipment. The fly-by-wire flight control laws would have reverted to a slightly degraded mode, but not affected the pilot’s ability to control the plane. The limited hydraulic power, however, would have limited the ability to extend the flaps and slats – which appear to be partially extended after the landing, and may account for being able to touch down at a speed that prevented the airplane from breaking apart (the calm river surface certainly didn’t hurt!) Extension of these surfaces would allow for a slower landing. It is not clear, from what I have read, if they were ever fully retracted or remained partially extended from the recent takeoff – not sure it matters.
I would also like to commend the crew for a job well don and agree with Jager’s comments on flight attendants and their critical roll in evacuating an airplane in a safe and expeditious manner.
Comrade Nikolita
It’s probably been mentioned already, but I’m too lazy to read all the prior posts, so…
John, do you watch the show Mayday/Air Crash Investigations? (Different name based on the country it’s shown in, I think.) It’s very addictive. In Canada (well, BC anyways), it’s aired on The Discovery Channel.
I love to fly, but this show makes me nervous to fly… I’ll have to put it out of my mind if I end up going to Japan in May.
tw1
Is there any reason the APU wouldn’t have been going to supply the electrical and hydraulic systems?
jetpilote
There is no "ditch switch" in small aircraft and one is certainly one woould not be used to hold the gear up. Only in the movies are aircraft pressurized on the ground or underwater. With wheels on the ground,the engines shut down or the A/C packs off there is no pressurization. You know absolutely nothing so what kind of kick do you get by commenting?