Flight 1549's 'miracle' escape
Updated on 16 January 2009
"Miracle on the Hudson", they're calling it. But how did the pilot pull it off?
"Brace yourselves for a hard impact" were the terrifying words of the pilot three minutes after take off from La Guardia airport.
Then in a stunning piece of flying Captain Chesley Sullenberger slowed the airbus right down and dropped it onto the Hudson River.
All the passengers and crew were taken off safe and the plane is floating around in the water right now still in one piece.
All 155 of his passengers and crew survived after he was forced to ditch his plane after both its engines were disabled by a collision with a flock of geese.
New York escaped disaster too when the plane crash-landed on the Hudson river between Manhattan and New Jersey.
How it happened
James Blake outlines the sequence of events during the amazing crash landing of Flight 1549.
Graham Braitwaite interview
Krishnan Guru-Murthy interviews Professor Graham Braithwaite, the head of air transport at Cranfield University.
