http://www.iht.com/articles/2009/01/18/news/plane.1-409908.phpNEW YORK: Just seconds after the first officer of US Airways Flight 1549, leaving La Guardia Airport in New York and bound for Charlotte, North Carolina, pointed the nose of his jet into the sky, he noticed birds on the right side - "in a perfect line formation."
The plane's captain, who had been busy watching the cockpit instruments, managing the radios and looking at charts, then looked up.
The windscreen, he told investigators, was filled with birds. The plane was going at least 250 miles an hour, or 400 kilometers per hour. The captain's first instinct, he said, was to duck.
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The account offered Saturday night by the U.S. safety agency - based on interviews conducted with the plane's crew - had numerous startling elements, not the least of which was the fact that Sullenberger, who has been hailed by the mayor of New York and President George W. Bush for his skill and bravery, was not at the controls at takeoff.
Instead, the plane's first officer, 49-year-old Jeffrey Skiles, was in control. A 23-year veteran of the airline, he had just 35 hours of flying time in an Airbus A320. But as soon as the plane encountered the birds, at about 3,000 feet, or 900 meters, and the engines quit nearly simultaneously, Sullenberger, 58, took over.
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