The more I read about the emergency and it's response, the more extraordinary it becomes. The actions of the pilot, the AMAZINGLY quick and efficient response from the boats on the river, and the orderly exit and relative calmness of the passengers (they let women and children off first...on a sinking plane....remarkable).
It's the first water landing that didn't result in a casualty in nearly 50 years. Whole thing just makes me smile....great story. On Fri, Jan 16, 2009 at 12:38 PM, Gruss Gott <[email protected]> wrote: > Yeah, it's usually a game over situation especially in the ocean due to > waves. > > If you dip one wing even a teeny bit and it catches water while the > plane has any decent forward motion it's a spin-flip-sink. > > I heard some of the passengers saying that this almost happened - the > right wing tip caught but they'd already slowed enough that there > wasn't enough force to cause any major problems - that was genius > flying by the pilot to control speed. > > I was a volunteer for the incident emergency team for 8 years and I > can tell you that US airlines spend a fortune to both prevent an > incident and to respond immediately to one. > > There's satellite uplinks, war rooms, "go" bags, et al and we were > ready 24/7/365. > > The SOC (system ops) would've had real-time radio and position > information and probably had the team moving before the a/c touched > the water. > > I was activated probably 10 times or so, but never for what turned out > to be a true incident except 9/11. None of our a/c were involved but > we had to pull down the entire operation as well as verify all crew > and secure all passengers. > > It's unfortunate that safety, security and response aren't big > sellers. Everybody tells you that they want them, but when it comes > time to buy the ticket they won't pay for it. > > Given the track record, many argue that we can have it all - and I > hope we can - but I'd be a LOT more comfortable with the old days when > airlines did 100% of their maintenance and owned their a/c. > > We used to fly techs to, say, SF and back in the same day just so they > could listen to the a/c and "feel" the a/c. Many times we added maint > and/or changed process from those flights. There used to be techs who > could diagnose needs just from driving the a/c from the gate to the > hanger. > > ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~| Adobe® ColdFusion® 8 software 8 is the most important and dramatic release to date Get the Free Trial http://ad.doubleclick.net/clk;207172674;29440083;f Archive: http://www.houseoffusion.com/groups/cf-community/message.cfm/messageid:285187 Subscription: http://www.houseoffusion.com/groups/cf-community/subscribe.cfm Unsubscribe: http://www.houseoffusion.com/cf_lists/unsubscribe.cfm?user=89.70.5
