ABSTRACT
No account of heroic recovery is complete without mention of Captain Chesley B. Sullenberger III (‘Sully’) and his First Officer, Jeffrey Skiles. They were flying an Airbus A320-200 out of LaGuardia Airport in New York City on 15 January 2009. About three minutes into the flight at 3.27 pm EST, the aircraft struck a flock of Canada geese during its initial climb out. The bird strike caused both jet engines to quickly lose power. As the aircraft lost altitude, the pilots decided they could not return to LaGuardia or reach Teterboro airfield in New Jersey. They turned southward and glided over the Hudson, finally ditching the airliner off midtown Manhattan into the Hudson River about three minutes after losing power.
