Miracle On The Hudson

NEW YORK (CBS) ― Considered the key pieces of evidence behind the emergency landing of US Airways Flight 1549 into the Hudson River on Friday, both of the engines on are missing, federal investigators announced Friday.

National Transportation Safety Board spokeswoman Kitty Higgins said the engines apparently came loose from the wreckage as it drifted south on Thursday night. She also said investigators could not get to the plane's cockpit and data recorders in the water and would have to wait until Saturday when the wreckage is lifted from the Hudson to retrieve them.

"We can't evaluate all the evidence. We've had divers down there, they were not able to get access to the location of the recorders because of the conditions they encountered," said Higgins.

Divers were using sonar Friday to help find the engines as investigators brought in a giant crane, and a barge to help pull the aircraft from the river.

Saturday morning they plan to take the plane from the waters and move it onto the barge. They'll then retrieve the recorders from the plane and document the damage.

Once the engines are retrieved investigators can end the speculation and make the determination that geese did in fact cripple the jet. Minutes after taking off from LaGuardia Airport, pilot Chesley B. Sullenberger alerted the control tower that both of the plane's engines had been hit by birds.

The plane hit the water and soon began to sink. Crew members rushed everyone out of the cabin and onto life rafts and the plane's wings, where survivors were brought to safety by rescue boats.

"Our finest and bravest, workers from the Office of Emergency Management, Port Authority police, the USCG, ferry crews from NY Waterways, the Circle Line, EMT, and everyday citizens made split second decisions that resulted in a dramatic rescue," Mayor Michael Bloomberg said during a City Hall news conference Friday.

Bloomberg planned to present the pilot with the key to the city.

Sullenberger was in good spirits and showing no outward signs of stress from the ordeal, a pilots union official said. His wife on Friday said he was "a pilot's pilot" and called talk of him being a national hero "a little weird."

But passengers were effusive in their praise for how Sullenberger, co-pilot Jeff Skiles and crew handled the landing and evacuation as they recounted the splashdown Friday.

Mark P. Hood, of Charlotte, N.C., said he felt a jolt ripple through the jet as though a baseball bat hit the engine close to the George Washington Bridge.

"I think everyone was holding their breath, making their peace, saying their prayers," Hood said Friday.

"When we hit the water, as soon as we hit I realized we'd survived. I grabbed (the passenger sitting next to him) and said, `We made it. We made it."'

Sullenberger considered emergency landings at two airports but twice told air controllers he was unable to make them. He told controllers he planned to go into the river, instead.

That word comes from a person briefed on pilot Chesley B. "Sully" Sullenberger's radio communications after his Airbus A320 suffered a double bird strike after takeoff from LaGuardia Airport. The person spoke on condition of anonymity because of the ongoing investigation.

Air traffic controllers first gave Sullenberger directions to return to LaGuardia, but he replied, "unable." Then he saw the Teterboro airstrip in the northern New Jersey suburbs, got clearance to go there, but then again responded, "unable." He then said he was going into the river.

The Airbus A320, built in 1999, was tethered to a pier on the tip of Lower Manhattan on Friday morning -- about four miles from where it touched down. Only a gray wing tip could be seen jutting out of the water near a Lower Manhattan sea wall.

Crews of NYPD divers went underwater Friday to inspect the belly of the plane to make sure it was stable enough to lift and secure a bed of ropes underneath it. Police and emergency crews also pulled about 15 pieces of carry-on luggage, the door of the plane, sheared pieces of metal and flotation devices from the water.

(© 2009 CBS Broadcasting Inc. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. The Associated Press contributed to this report.)

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