Feb 9, 2009 6:38 pm US/Eastern
CBS 2HD Retraces Flight 1549's Flight Path
Chopper 2HD's Joe Biermann contributed to this report.
NEW YORK (CBS) ―
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Surveillance video of US Airways Flight 1549 seconds after it crash lands.
CBS
Flight 1549 lasted only five minutes, but it's now part of aviation history.
January 15th was much like Monday - a good day to fly, when the flight took off from LaGuardia Airport. But 90 seconds later, the birds struck.
"Then they begin to hit. It's like a thump," said retired pilot J.P. Tristani.
Tristani has more than 40 years of experience. He describes what those five minutes in the air were probably like for pilot Chesley Sullenberger, as the plane lost engine power.
"At this particular point I'm in a turn. If I'm in a turn, that requires more power to keep that aircraft in the air. So now I'm losing power and I'm losing air speed," Tristani said. "So my thought was to level off this plane. I'm not going to make it to LaGuardia."
Sully asks about Teterboro Airport in New Jersey. "I would have thought five to seven miles. And I would have said 'Not a chance'," Tristani said.
"We can't do it," Sully told air traffic control. The tower responded: "OK, which runway would you like at Teterboro?"
Sully said, "We're gonna be in the Hudson."
"Now he's looking at the Hudson river. Now I've got my glide angle as best I can. I've decreased my speed somewhere below 200 miles an hour," Tristani said.
"I had to touch down with the wings exactly level. I needed to touch down with the nose slightly up. I needed to touch down at a descent rate that was survivable. And I needed to touch down just above our minimum flying speed but not below it. And I needed to take all of these things happen simultaneously," Sully told Katie Couric in his 60 Minutes interview.
"This had to be one of Sully's most terrifying moments in aviation - the recognition that the engines are failing, for crying out loud, I'm going down," Tristani said.
Because of Sullenberger's experience and poise, the crisis had a remarkable ending.
(© MMIX, CBS Broadcasting Inc. All Rights Reserved.)
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