Miracle at 48th Street?

[herveus]

Whilst listening to Bomb Shelter Radio last night, Fuzz was talking about the off-airport landing of the USAir flight from LaGuardia. I'm pretty sure I heard him say something like "it's a miracle". I'm not sure if he was speaking for himself or quoting someone... whatever.

The first thing that leapt to mind was "If it's a miracle, Colour Sergeant, it's a Boxer Henry short point 45 caliber miracle", spoken by Lieutenant Chard to Colour Sergeant Bourne at the conclusion of the remarkable stand by B Company, 24th Foot, at Rourke's Drift in which a company stood off three battalions or so of Zulus over a day and a night. Great story.

It is clear from the outcome on the Hudson that the drivers didn't stop flying that airplane until it had come to a complete stop, then saw to the orderly disembarkation of the passengers in their care. It is a remarkable outcome, but we are not at a loss for an explanation of how it came to pass, thus not meeting the requirements for miraculosity.

Ah, well...

Update: The article in the Washington Post was laudably free from hyperbole. It did claim that the birds in question were geese -- somewhat larger than most birds. It did say "Safety experts expressed surprise that a commercial jet with modern engines could be brought down by a flock of birds." Some experts...

Comments

[montuos]

I'm pretty sure he was quoting news reports, because he promptly proceeded to describe all the engineering, skill, and just plain doing-the-right-thing that contributed to the outcome.

[herveus.livejournal.com]

That's my thought as well...

[fuzzface00.livejournal.com]

Some of it was quoting news reports and I agree all the training and equipment did what they were supposed to do.

However, I said "miracle" because I felt some things were beyond the technical. The investigation may prove me wrong on this, but consider the following:

1) At least one engine exploded (according to a passenger), and yet there wasn't enough flight surface (wing) damage to prevent a reasonable landing.
2) The Hudson River is (as one newsman put it) a beehive of activity on the water and as a low-level air corridor. Not to mention a certain large bridge that was missed. Nothing got hit during the landing.
3) The plane comes to rest in the water near a ferry terminal.
4) The plane managed to cross over one of the densest population centers of the United States and not crash.

So, yes... a technical and training accomplishment. But I think there were elements of luck, or a miracle, or what have you going on as well.

[jpgsawyer.livejournal.com]

I think the miraculous thing is that all the systems worked the way they are supposed to, the conditions where good, the pilot was one of those freaky individuals who didn't panic (trust me even some professional pilots do that at times) and that he had enough height and power to get to the river rather than the middle of Manhattan after take off.

That all these things happened is a testament to the engineering involved but its still pretty darn lucky.
(Reply to this)

[shalandara.livejournal.com]

One of the other lucky things was that there was a ferry boat right nearby the crash site, and got to it within three minutes. The ferry lines train for this,, and they knew exactly what to do. That first boat pulled over 50 people out of the cold water almost immediately.

[nostasia.livejournal.com]

Some "safety experts." It's called "bird strike" and the aviation world is well-aware that it can bring a plane down, modern or not. I'm really glad that in this case everyone got out safely.

[jpgsawyer.livejournal.com]

Not entirely. I work in this field and its its an extremely unlikely event that both engines will be disabled by a flock of geese.

To start with the engines are over 80m apart which means the flock has to be very large, also airports spend a lot of money detecting and dispersing flocks of birds from the paths of airliners.

So yes bird strike is a common enough event but this incident is an exceptional event and that is what is surpising to those of us who work in this field.

[herveus.livejournal.com]

I'll grant the unlikeliness of the event, but for experts to express surprise that it could happen at all is what prompted my snark.

80m seems more like the wingspan of an A320, not the engine spacing. I might buy 80 feet...

All the same, yes it was exceptional, but to be surprised that it could happen at all suggests unwarranted optimism.

[jpgsawyer.livejournal.com]

Sorry my bad, too much working on the A380!

[fuzzface00.livejournal.com]

At one point a pundit said "the bird strike knocked out two engines". The tone implied that this was not a fatal event for the aircraft. After a quick reference check, I realized said pundit was unaware that the A320 only had two engines.

[hugh-mannity.livejournal.com]

Colour Sergeant Bourne: It's a miracle.
Lieutenant John Chard: If it's a miracle, Colour Sergeant, it's a short chamber Boxer Henry point 45 caliber miracle.
Colour Sergeant Bourne: And a bayonet, sir, with some guts behind.

Wonderful movie. I should watch it (again) tonight.


I think the miraculous part of the whole plane landing thing is that nothing went wrong: The pilot made a perfect landing under very difficult conditions; the emergency chutes and flotation devices deployed properly; none of the passengers panicked wildly (so they were able to get everyone out in a swift and orderly fashion; there were ferry boats on hand; the emergency responders were there very quickly; and so on.

It's hard to coordinate all that sort of stuff when you're trying to do it with plenty of time. To do it on an ad-hoc emergency basis and have it all go right is at least unusual, if not downright miraculous.

[herveus.livejournal.com]

Actually, at least one of the rafts got flipped over and was useless...but there was enough floaty stuff (including the wings) to accomodate everyone long enough to be rescued...

[fuzzface00.livejournal.com]

/me debates whether or not some of those "slides turned to rafts" aren't a poor design to begin with.

[weatherman2111.livejournal.com]

Certainly was a good combination of circumstances overall given what happened, including a lot of river traffic and low wind at the time.

[bunnyjadwiga.livejournal.com]

It was Gov. Patterson who called it a "miracle on the Hudson" in the press conference (why they dragged Patterson all the way down from Albany for that I don't know).

Personally, I have a sneaking suspicion that the whole thing was an Act Of God carefully staged by Deity/Deities to cheer New Yorkers up. (There were a series of really fortuitous positive circumstances... like settling RIGHT by the ferry terminal, which the pilot couldn't have been aiming for...)