Let's thank not only the Captian, but the rest of the flight crew and cabin staff. This was a collective effort by all. A cool-headed pilot maneuvered his crippled jetliner over New York City and...
Remercions non seulement le Commandant de bord mais le reste de l'équipage et le personnel de cabine. Cela a été un effort collectif de tous. Un sang-froid remarquable du pilote manoeuvrant son avion sur la ville de New York et ...

US Airways Flight 1549 Hudson River Perfect Landing AIRBUS A320 SAFETY. Plane crash Mayday Air Crash Investigation. 
An Airbus A320 plane with 155 people on board went into a chilly Hudson River, apparently after striking at least one bird upon takeoff from New York's LaGuardia Airport, according to officials and passengers. Everyone on board was accounted for and ALIVE, officials said. 
Passenger Fred Berretta. "It was quite stunning." He said he was expecting the plane to flip over and break apart, but it did not: "It was a great landing," 
The pilot of a US Airways jet managed to avoid disaster and save the lives of all 155 people on board his stricken plane when he ditched into the icy waters of the Hudson river moments after taking off from New York's LaGuardia airport. 
Flight 1549 was carrying 148 passengers, including a baby, five crew and two pilots, and all of them escaped. 
Captain Chesley Sullenberger, has 29 years' experience with commercial airlines and is a former US airforce fighter pilot. 
With both his twin engines in trouble, one apparently on fire, and with the nearest airport out of range, he calmly brought the plane to land on the river on the west side of Manhattan. 
Sullenberger then helped passengers escape to rescue boats, and twice walked the length of the passenger cabin inside the sinking jet to check that everyone had got out safely, before escaping himself. 
The Airbus 320 took off from LaGuardia bound for Charlotte in North Carolina at 3.26pm. A mere 30 to 45 seconds after take-off there was a bang and the aircraft shook, believed to have been caused by it striking a flock of geese. 
The pilot reported to air traffic control that he was experiencing engine problems and requested to return to ground. The nearest identified airport was in New Jersey, but when it became clear he could not make it, the pilot prepared for a crash landing on the Hudson. "Brace yourself for impact," he told the passengers. 
Seconds later the plane struck the Hudson, on a line with 48th Street in midtown Manhattan, turning a stretch of waterway normally populated by tourists enjoying a waterside view of the skyscrapers into an astonishing fight for survival. 
Eyewitnesses reported seeing a splash and the plane coming to an immediate stop; it looked so controlled that some witnesses mistook it for the landing of a seaplane. "I just thought, 'Why is it so low?' And splash, it hit the water," said one witness, Barbara Sambriski. 
Jeff Kolodjay, one of the passengers, said that after take-off they had heard a bang and the plane filled with smoke from the left engine. "It was pretty scary, man. We got out by the luck of God. I take my hat off to the pilot it was incredible we all made it off alive." 
Another passenger, Alberto Panero, said: "I want to say thank you to that pilot. It was as good a landing as you can make in a river." He said that passengers had begun praying as it came in low over the river, but all had remained calm. 
The survival of all on board appears to have been thanks to a combination of the plane remaining intact on impact and almost immediate assistance from at least seven water taxis and tugs which swarmed around the jet. Doors were opened quickly at the front of the aircraft and over the wings, and passengers either stepped straight into the boats or stood in line on rafts, or on top of the wings which acted as buoyancy and kept the plane afloat. 
By the time all had been taken on to the rescue boats, the plane had water up to its windows and was floating rapidly southwards in the outgoing tide. Several passengers were taken to hospitals in New York and New Jersey, but their injuries were reported to be no more serious than mild hypothermia, shock, cuts and bruises. 
"Normally this isn't the way people arrive in New York," said the city's mayor Michael Bloomberg. "But as long as everyone got off safely that's secondary." 
A team of 20 investigators from the National Transportation and Safety Board has been dispatched to root out the causes of the plane failure. 
Witnesses suggested that the engine trouble was caused by the plane flying into a flock of geese a perennial threat at New York airports as a result of the city lying on a well-used migratory path for birds. 
One puzzle, though, is why both engines cut out. The left engine appeared to have caught fire, but pilots are usually able to bring a plane into an emergency landing with just one engine working. 
An air incident investigator, David Gleave, told the BBC that the incident was "quite remarkable, but not unique". He said if both engines of the plane had failed, the aircraft would become like a "glider".    

US Airways Flight 1549 Hudson River Perfect Landing.AIRBUS A320 SAFETY Plane crash Mayday Air Crash Investigation. 
New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg commended the pilot for not leaving the plane without checking to make sure every passenger had been evacuated. 
"It would appear that the pilot did a masterful job of landing the plane in the river and then making sure that everybody got out," Bloomberg said at a press conference Thursday. 
"I had a long conversation with the pilot. He walked the plane twice after everybody else was off and tried to verify that there was nobody else on board -- and assures us there was not." 
Sullenberger apparently was forced to make an emergency landing after geese were sucked into one or both of the jet's engines. An eyewitness working on the west side of Manhattan said the belly of the plane touched the water first. 
An official who heard tape recordings of the radio traffic from Flight 1549 reported the pilot was extraordinarily calm during the event. 
"There was no panic, no hysterics," the official said. "It was professional, it was calm, it was methodical. It was everything you hoped it could be." 
The pilot and air traffic controller discussed options, including landing at Teterboro airport in New Jersey, the official said. Then there was a "period of time where there was no communications back, and I'm assuming he was concentrating on more important things." 
Sullenberger's background in aviation appeared to have prepared him for such a situation. 
He has been a pilot with US Airways since 1980, following seven years in the U.S. Air Force. 
His resume -- posted on the Web site for his safety consulting firm, Safety Reliability Methods, Inc. -- lists piloting procedures, technical safety strategies, emergency management and operations improvement, as areas of industry expertise. 
He served as an instructor and Air Line Pilots Association safety chairman, accident investigator and national technical committee member, according to a biography on the site. He participated in several USAF and National Transportation Safety Board accident investigations, and worked with NASA scientists on a paper on error and aviation, his site says.

For the passengers on flight 1549, Sullenberger's skill and expertise were apparent. 
"I've flown in a lot of planes and that was a phenomenal landing," said passenger Fred Berretta said. 
Berretta was sitting in seat 16A right over one of the engines when it failed and the pilot turned the plane to align it with the Hudson River. He described silence in the plane as the passengers waited to hear from the crew. 
A few moments later, the direction to brace for landing came. 

Audio only with annotations from transcript. Courtesy FAA, NTSB and Con Edison. FAA Flight 1549 data page: http://www.faa.gov/data%5Fs... NTSB explanation: http://www.ntsb.gov/Pressre... 

Professional 3D animation, accurately reconstructed to match the event.

“Birdstrike. He Lost Both Engines”  source Aviationweek    While salvage workers labored in freezing temperatures to wrest the US Airways Airbus A320-200 from the Hudson River, the NTSB on Jan. 17 revealed what transpired in the cockpit, the cabin and control tower during the harrowing five-minute journey of Flight 1549.   Part 1 - Sequence of Events - US Airways Flight 1549 Date: Jan. 15, 2009' Origination:  New York LaGuardia Airport Planned Destination: Charlotte, N.C. Actual Destination:  New York Hudson River Passengers: 150 Crew:        2 Flight, 3 Cabin flight Duration: Five minutes According to NTSB Member Kitty Higgins, spokesperson at the on-site investigation, the timeline is based on FAA radar and audio relays of air traffic control communications related to “AWE1549,” according to NTSB Member Kitty Higgins, official spokesperson at on-site investigation. [Ed: note: “AWe” refers to -America West, parent company of US Airways]  Times are local EST as reported to NTSB.  15:24:54  LaGuardia (LGA) tower controller clears Flight 1549 for takeoff from Runway 4, with instructions to turn left after departure and maintain a 360 deg heading. About a minute later, controller instructs crew to contact New York Departure Control.  15:25:51  Pilot contacts departure controller and advises aircraft was passing through at 700 ft. and climbing to 5,000 ft. Controller instructs aircraft to climb to 15,000 ft. Crew acknowledges. Controller instructs flight to turn left to heading 270 deg.  15:27:01  “Ahhh, this is 1549. Hit birds. We lost thrust in both engines. We’re turning back towards LaGuardia.” ATC acknowledges problem and instructs flight to turn left on a 220-deg heading. Crew acknowledges Radar data from Newark and JFK sites indicate that at 15:27:01-- about 90 sec. after Flight 1549’s departure from LGA--the Airbus A320-200 intersected a “string of primary targets” between 2,900 ft. and 3,000 ft. These targets [interpretation: birds] were not depicted on the departure controller’s radar screen.  15:27:49  Departure controller advises LGA tower to halt further departures because an “emergency airplane is returning to the airport.” When queried which flight was returning, departure control advises, “It’s 1549. Birdstrike. He lost all engines, he lost the thrust in the engines. He is returning immediately.”  15:28.05  Controller asks if pilot wants to land at LaGuardia’s Runway 13. Pilot responds:  “We are unable. We may end up in the Hudson.”  According to the NTSB, discussion followed as to whether the flight could land at Teterboro (N.J.) airport, located about six mi. off the right side of the aircraft. Pilot responds, “We can’t do it.”   When asked on which runway he would like to land, pilot responds: “We’re gonna be in the Hudson”—the last communiqué from the aircraft 15:30:30  Radar data shows aircraft touchdown in the Hudson River.  Radar and tower personnel notify U.S. Coast Guard, New York City Police Dept. and other search and rescue groups.  Coast Guard replies, “We launched the fleet.”The safety board’s Air Traffic Control Group had completed interviews with seven controllers and air traffic management personnel from New York Terminal Radar Approach Control (TRACON) and LaGuardia (LGA) tower.                                                                            Part II – Inside the Cabin  While the drama was unfolding in the “front office,” the two flight attendants seated in forward cabin described the scene in the cabin to the NTSB. (As of Jan. 17, investigators had not yet been able to interview the third flight attendant who was seated in the rear of the cabin. She was injured in the accident and was still hospitalized.)  The two attendants told the NTSB that shortly after the routine takeoff, they heard “a loud thud,” a type of sound that neither had heard before. All engine noise ceased, they said, and cabin was in complete silence, “like being in a library,” according to Higgins. Both overheard a first-class passenger say, “I think we hit birds.” Neither flight attendant reported feeling the aircraft was in a turn, although they felt it descend. A light smoke haze had filled the cabin, but it did not affect visibility, they said, and both detected a burning electrical- or metallic-like odor. One of the attendants saw water on the right side of the aircraft, when the captain made the announcement, “Brace for impact.”  The flight attendants then ordered the passengers to “Brace, brace. Heads down!” shouting out directions and not using the intercom. The impact with water felt more like a hard landing, they said. There was no bounce, and the aircraft gradually decelerated. And neither realized the aircraft was in the water, says Higgins. When the aircraft stopped, the captain issued the one-word command, “Evacuate!”  One attendant opened the left front, the other, the right front door. The right door slide opened and inflated automatically, but the left front door slide did not. It opened, however, when the flight attendant manually turned the handle. At this point, the threshold of doors was 2-3 ft. above the water. The flight attendants gave further evacuation commands—“ Leave everything behind, move forward, put on your life vests”--and began to get everyone in the life rafts. Meanwhile, passengers seated in the exit rows opened the doors which deployed slide rafts, and people exited onto the wings.  The flight attendants said there was “no panic, no jostling, no yelling” among the passengers. The captain came out of the cockpit and was very concerned about the passenger count, returning several times to the A320 to make certain everyone was out of the aircraft. One flight attendant, the first officer and captain were the last to leave the aircraft. True to tradition of sea and air, Captain Chesley B. Sullenberger was the very last to leave his literally sinking ship  “And that’s their story,” said Higgins.  As of the evening of Saturday, Jan. 17, divers, using sonar, had not yet located the aircraft’s engines that detached from the A320-200 after the water landing. The powerplants will help investigators verify if birdstrikes occurred and by what type of bird, the severity of the strikes, as well as the extent of engine damage. Meanwhile, salvage workers, hampered by strong currents, and freezing water and outside air temperatures, had begun the slow, methodical job of lifting the aircraft from the river, securing it to a barge and transporting it to hangar for examination by the NTSB. Once that work is completed, investigators will be able to access the flight data recorders, located in the tail of the A320. Data readouts and examination of fuselage will provide important clues as to what transpired on Flight 1549.  Caméra de surveillance: For videos of Flight 1549’s water landing, http://cnn.com/2009/US/01/17/usair.splash.video/index.html   Aviation Week will issue updates as NTSB investigators reveal more details about Flight 1549.  source Aviationweek     Below Playing in 3D environment - Flight 1549 reconstruction  source exosphere3d