Yesterday, New Yorkers peered out the windows of their offices facing west, wondering the fate of a crashed jetliner into the Hudson River. That’s right… a crashed jetliner in the Hudson River, with Bank of America employees aboard, nonetheless. In a year with few blessing so far, all were rescued and brought to shore as they waited on the plane’s wings. (As for BofA, it was a silver lining to their earnings.) Captain Sully Sullenberger, you are our hero on this day.
Morning Call: January 16
A US Airways jetliner with 155 people aboard lost power in both engines, possibly from striking birds, after taking off from La Guardia Airport on Thursday afternoon. The pilot ditched in the icy Hudson River and all on board were rescued by a flotilla of converging ferries and emergency boats, the authorities said.
What might have been a catastrophe in New York — one that evoked the feel if not the scale of the Sept. 11 attack — was averted by a pilot’s quick thinking and deft maneuvers, and by the nearness of rescue boats, a combination that witnesses and officials called miraculous.
As stunned witnesses watched from high-rise buildings on both banks, the Airbus A320, which had risen to 3,200 feet over the Bronx and banked left, came downriver, its fuselage lower than many apartment terraces and windows, in a carefully executed touchdown shortly after 3:30 p.m. that sent up huge plumes of water at midstream, between West 48th Street in Manhattan and Weehawken, N.J.