Jan 17, 2009 11:41 am US/Eastern
Crews To Remove Plane From Hudson Saturday
NEW YORK (CBS) ―
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Passengers in an inflatable raft move away from US Airway Flight 1549 Airbus A320 jet after it crashed in Hudson River.
AP
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Passengers of U.S. Airways Flight 1549 stand on the right wing, and float on an emergency exit chute, after the plane crashed into the frigid Hudson River in New York City, as photographed by a man on one of several ferry boats that responded to the scene.
Janis Krums
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Passengers are rescued from US Airway Flight 1549 Airbus A320 jet after it crashed in Hudson River, New York.
AP
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A US Airways plane floats in the water near the coast after crashing into the Hudson River in the afternoon on Jan. 15, 2009, near the Battery Park neighborhood in New York City.
Julian Ungano/Getty Images
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A US Airways plane floats in the water near the coast after crashing into the Hudson River in the afternoon on Jan. 15, 2009, near the Battery Park neighborhood in New York City.
Julian Ungano/Getty Images
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A US Airways plane floats in the water near the coast after crashing into the Hudson River in the afternoon on Jan. 15, 2009, near the Battery Park neighborhood in New York City.
Julian Ungano/Getty Images
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U.S. Airways Flight 1549, en route from LaGuardia Airport to Charlotte, N.C., floats on the Hudson River in New York moments after the FAA said a flock of birds disabled both engines. Authorities said 78 of the 155 souls aboard were hurt, but none killed.
Kathryn Brown/CBS
The Airbus A-320 that carried 155 people when it splashed into the Hudson River will be taken out of the freezing river Saturday. The plane remains moored to a dock in Battery Park City a day after scuba divers inspected the wreckage.
The flight data and cockpit voice recorders are still inside the tail of the aircraft. The Hudson's currents and cold water have kept divers from getting to them, but investigators expect to have them in hand today.
The National Transportation Safety Board said the plane's left engine was missing.
"We got the NYPD working with the corps of engineers and using side scan sonar, and they;re out there now trying to locate the engines. They started at the point where the plane came down and are moving down the river," said Kitty Higgin of the NTSB.
The investigators need hard evidence but it's presumed birds were sucked into both engines bringing the jet down, possibly a flock of Canadian geese.
"There was a big boom. We lost everything. We could smell smoke," said survivor Jay McDonald.
The A-320 airbus instantly became a heavy glider. Radio transcripts, now part of investigation, indicate the captain briefly considered returning to LaGuardia, then trying for Teeterboro, before announcing the river was his only option.
"We could see he was going for the water," another survivor said.
The pilot, 57-year-old Chesley B. "Sully" Sullenberger III of Danville, California, fortunately chose a spot where quick evacuation was possible.
"I didn't get to tell everybody good bye, it's what you think. I needed to tell everyone how much I loved them, I hadn't gotten to do that," said passenger Beth McHugh.
It may be one of the most unusual and uplifting crash investigations ever - tracking down the individual elements of a miracle.
"So many times we are only focused on what went wrong and a lot of things went right yesterday including the way not only the crew functioned but the plane functioned," Higgins said.
(© MMX, CBS Broadcasting Inc. All Rights Reserved.)
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