Investigators Offer Details of Flight’s Few Minutes
By AL BAKER and MATTHEW L. WALD
Published: January 17, 2009
Investigators on Saturday provided a detailed and griping description of the abortive five-minute flight of US Airways 1549 that ended safely in the Hudson River based on transcripts of air traffic controllers and interviews with flight attendants.
In a news conference conducted by Kathryn O. Higgins, a member of National Transportation Safety Board who is investigating Thursday’s incident, she revealed how the pilots knew after they hit a flock of birds 90 seconds into their flight bound for Charlotte, N.C., and lost thrust in both engines that the river might be their last and only option.
She relayed the chilling conversation with air traffic controllers that ended abruptly with the warning of one of the plane’s pilot, “We’re gonna be in the Hudson.”
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Radar from Kennedy and Newark Airport confirmed that the aircraft had intersected “primary targets” between 2,900 feet and 3,000 feet, Ms. Higgins said, almost certainly birds that were about five miles from LaGuardia Airport. [
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