LaGuardia Airport Monitor of US Air Flight 1549

[Born_A_Truman]

http://www4.passur.com/lga.html

LaGuardia "Airport Monitor". Change date to January 15 and time to 15:26, click start, click on first airplane that departs (turns green) and the flight info is shown on the right.

H/T Airline Pilot forum

[mnhtnbb]

1. Wow. Not only do you see it go off the screen, you also see a plane

flying up the Hudson likely divert to avoid a mid-air collision! It would be nice to know what the altitudes were of both planes. Jeebus.

[nichomachus]

3. The plane flying straight at him was at about 1000 ft

Dropping to about 700 before veering off, if I remember correctly.

[nichomachus]

2. Awesome graphic

But it points directly to what I posted on the other thread about luck. Just look at the traffic over the Hudson at that time. That one plane got out of his path just in time to avoid a midair collision. There was another one crossing the river further down. He did a great piece of flying, but it's just sheer luck there wasn't something in his way either in the air or on the river.

[TahitiNut]

5. (duplicate)

(DU software belch)

[TahitiNut]

6. I wouldn't call it "sheer luck."

I'd call it Air Traffic Control and skilled flight crews in the aircraft. Sully declared an emergency. All kinds of skilled and experienced people swing into action at that point. Aircraft maintain vertical separation as well as safe flight vectors.

[nichomachus]

7. Yeah -- but ATC

Can't get a tug and a couple of barges -- or even a ferry boat -- out of the way in a minute. That part of the Hudson is pretty busy real estate. I'm not taking anything away from the people who did what they did, but they were helped out by luck.

[TahitiNut]

10. Well, he just blew his horn so they got out of the way.

:dunce:

I know. That part of the Hudson gets lots of watercraft, especially at that time of day.

[Born_A_Truman]

4. Pictures just prior to the ditching

(From the same forum)

[TahitiNut]

9. Tail down and (undoubtedly) flaps fully extended ... 20:1 glide ratio

He's doing it all right ... slow and ass-heavy.

[ipfilter]

11. You can see the leading edge slats are down. nt

[TahitiNut]

12. It does look that way. I'll bet if one were to measure the angle of the plane's attitude ...

... they'd find that it was absolutely perfect to within a half of a degree. Sully has that plane perfectly trimmed for what he has to do. It's as textbook perfect as it gets, I'd bet.

[Ryano42]

13. Talk about pros...if you look carefully...

you can see the copilot near the rear of the fuselage carefully slipping the Airbus's swim trunks on before a frosty dip in the Hudson! :D

:dunce:

Great job all around! :thumbsup:

[napi21]

8. That's GREAT! Thanks for posting. n/t