Plane crash hudson river

Plane crash hudson river :

155 lives saved by a pilot from the Hudson River plane crash

The pilot of the US Airways flight who managed to successfully crash land his crippled plane in the Hudson River, saving all 155 people aboard, is being hailed a hero.

The pilot of the doomed Flight 1549 was Chesley B. "Sully" Sullenberger III, 57, of Danville, Calif., a former fighter jet pilot who also runs a flight safety firm in addition to flying commercial planes.

New York Gov. David Patterson called the landing "a miracle on the Hudson."

Sullenberger "did a masterful job of landing the plane in the river and then making sure that everybody got out," New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg said. "He walked the plane twice after everybody else was off, and tried to verify that there was nobody else on board, and he assures us there was not."

Sullenberger's co-pilot was Jeff Skiles, 49, of Oregon, Wis., a 23-year US Airways veteran.

An air traffic controllers union official said a pilot on the plane reported a "double bird strike" less than a minute after takeoff and immediately asked for an emergency landing.

It is believed both engines were hit by a bird, possible an entire flock.

National Air Traffic Controllers Union spokesman Doug Church said the bird strikes were reported at 30 to 45 seconds into the flight.

The pilot was instructed to divert to Teterboro, New Jersey, for an emergency landing, shortly before the plane went down.

Bird strikes are actually not uncommon for commercial aviation, and most strikes do not cause damage

The FAA says there were about 65,000 bird strikes to civil aircraft in the U.S. between 1990 to 2005. But actual crashes caused by bird are rare.

Aircraft safety analyst Joseph Yeremian told CTV Newsnet that airplane engines are actually tested by putting chickens through them, but there are no guarantees with all the variables of actual flight.

He said a combination of a flock of birds, the cold temperature and perhaps a fault in the engines could have combined to disable the plane.

Aviation experts praised the pilots' skill, for managing to coax the crippled plane to the Hudson and for putting the plane down into the icy waters intact.

Within hours of the amazing event, blogs lit up praising Sullenberger and a Facebook fan site sprung up.

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