Being hailed as the “Hero of 2009” US Airways Captain Chesley “Sulley” Sullenberger III accomplished what many would say was the impossible. By an act of God and years of experience and training this flight crew of US Airways 1549 achieved a successful water landing in the Hudson River yesterday without any fatalities. The images are somewhat surreal, looking at the 150 passengers in rafts and standing on the sinking wings of the Airbus A320, but everyone was able to escape the sinking airliner. Just an amazing achievement!

Early investigation tells the story of a flock of geese being ingested into both engines on after the A320 departed LGA. Most likely some sort of compressor stall that caused both engines to shut down. A rare event indeed. There are tests run where engineers launch birds into engines to make sure the engine can be successfully shutdown, but loosing both engines to birds is unheard of!

While there is no video of the actual emergency landing, this brings to mind the 1996 hijacked Ethopian Airlines Boeing 767 that made a similar attempt to land in the ocean off the coast of Grande Comore, in Comoros. Unfortunately results were devastating, as the airliner caught a wing, causing the plane to cartwheel and kill 125 of the 175 aboard.

“The fact that passengers were able to walk off that airplane and wait on the wing for rescuers to arrive is remarkable. It’s amazing,” said aviation consultant Tommy McFall, a former airline pilot and retired accident investigator for the National Transportation Safety Board.*