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Successful Water Landings Are Uncommon

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Jan 16, 2009 6:36 pm US/Eastern

Successful Water Landings Are Uncommon

CBS 2's Jennifer McLogan Takes Part In Simulation Of Water Landing

 CBS News Interactive: Eye On Air Safety
Reporting
Jennifer McLogan
OAKDALE, N.Y. (CBS) ― The pilot of US Airways Flight 1549 made Thursday's landing in the Hudson a smooth operation, but in fact, a successful water landing like that is extraordinarily uncommon. CBS 2's Jennifer McLogan spent the day at flight school, learning just how difficult a splashdown can be.

Pilot John Wensveen is the Dean of Dowling College School of Aviation, where on Friday, life-saving simulation training took on added meaning and urgency.

"We're trying to calculate the glide slope so we don't put aircraft into a dive. But we're going to the ground, we're going fast.We want nose up tail down," Wensveen said as he guided McLogan through a simulated flight.

Water crash landings are rare and usually deadly. A hijacked Ethiopean Airliner was forced down in 1996 and killed 125 passengers when it crumbled apart in the water. Flight instructors and students at Dowling went over the split-second decisions the US Airways pilot was forced to make to save lives.

"Even though we are in a panicky situation we are calm cool and collected," said Wensveen, as he simulated an emergency landing. "We are going down, but going through that mental check list and alerting the back what to do, getting ready to brace."

The Ethiopian airliner hit nose down, and the wings and fuselage exploded.

Flight 1549 glided, ingenerating a cushion of air, descending at a shallow angle.

"Cold winter conditions actually increase the performance of the airplane," said Wensveen.

It was not possible to dump fuel from the Airbus a320 model, which added to the imminent danger in the water crash landing, and just another piece of evidence of how miraculous its emergency landing truly was.

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