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As you may have heard yesterday, US Airways Flight 1549 crash landed in the Hudson River in NYC shortly after take-off as the result of the plane’s impact with at least two birds, each flying into the plane’s two engines (referred to as a double bird strike). In footage that has already been seen over and over again, all across the world, the US Airways plane — piloted by Captain Chesley B. Sullenberger III — crash landed in the Hudson River in such a way that NO LIVES were lost in the impact. Today, NYC Governor David A. Paterson and Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg (and others) are calling Capt. Sullenberger a “masterful” hero worthy of praise and accolades for his quick thinking and expert piloting during yesterday’s emergency. Here are a couple photos of the half-submerged plane as it was towed to Battery Park last night, after every single passenger and crew member was safely removed from the plane after impact:

A day after a dramatic splashdown and rescue, in which all 155 passengers and crew members of Flight 1549 escaped safely from an icy plunge into the Hudson River, investigators prepared to lift the mostly submerged aircraft from its resting spot in the water at Battery Park City. The plane, an Airbus 320, was towed from the site around 48th Street down the Hudson Thursday evening, intact. Getting it out of the water intact Friday might prove to be even more of a challenge. Investigators Friday brought an oversize crane and a barge to extract the aircraft — 123 feet long and weighing more than 81 tons — out of its docking place and ship it to a site to determine the cause of the accident. Near the Hudson piers where only cruise ships and ferry boats dock, the plane’s silent presence in the water Friday morning was yet another chilling reminder of the incongruous scene of near-disaster turned into rescue phenomenon. Gov. David A. Paterson called it a “miracle on the Hudson,” while everyone from Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg to passengers on the flight hailed the “masterful” efforts of its pilot, Capt. Chesley B. Sullenberger III. Captain Sullenberger used the river as an impromptu landing strip when both of his engines blew out less than two minutes into the takeoff from La Guardia Airport. He radioed the air traffic controller and said that both engines had suffered a “double bird strike.” Mr. Sullenberger, unable to get back to La Guardia, had made a command decision to avoid densely populated areas and try for the Hudson, and had warned the 150 passengers to brace for a hard landing. Most had their heads down as the jetliner slammed into the water, nose slightly up, just three minutes after takeoff on what was to be a flight to Charlotte, N.C. “If it wasn’t for him, I wouldn’t be here today,” said Mary Berkwits, of Stallings, N.C.,a passenger on Flight 1549, who prepared to return to Charlotte Friday morning at La Guardia Airport. “He was just wonderful.” What might have been a catastrophe in New York — one that evoked the feel if not the scale of the Sept. 11 attack — was averted by Mr. Sullenberger’s quick thinking and deft maneuvers, and by the nearness of rescue boats. Many on board and watching from the shores were shocked that the aircraft did not sink immediately. Instead, it floated, twisting and drifting south in strong currents, as three New York Waterway commuter ferries moved in. Moments later, terrified passengers began swarming out the emergency exits into brutally cold air and onto the submerged wings of the bobbing jetliner, which began taking in water. “I was on the wing hanging on with a lot of other passengers,” Ms. Berkwits said. “We’re slowly sinking further and further into the water. And the water was very cold. We’re all trying to stay as warm as possible by holding on to one another. We knew somebody would come and get us right away. We could see boats coming, helicopters flying around us.”As the first ferry nudged up alongside, witnesses said, some passengers were able to leap onto the decks. Others were helped aboard by ferry crews. Soon, a small armada of police boats, fireboats, tugboats and Coast Guard craft converged on the scene, and some of them snubbed up to keep the jetliner afloat. Helicopters brought wet-suited police divers, who dropped into the water to help with the rescues. Over the next hour, as a captivated city watched continuous television reports and the Hudson turned from gold to silver in the gathering winter twilight, all of the passengers, including at least one baby, and both pilots and all three flight attendants, were transferred to the rescue boats — a feat that unfolded as the white-and-blue jetliner continued to drift south. When all were out, the pilot walked up and down the aisle twice to make sure the plane was empty, officials said. Brought ashore on both sides of the river, the survivors were taken to hospitals in Manhattan and New Jersey, mostly for treatment of exposure to the brutal cold: 18 degrees in the air, about 35 degrees in the water that many had stood in on the wings up to their waists. Still, most of them walked ashore, some grim with fright and shivering with cold, wrapped in borrowed coats. But others were smiling, and a few were ready to give interviews to mobs of reporters and television cameras. Some described their survival as a miracle, a sentiment repeated later by city and state officials; others gave harrowing accounts of an ordeal whose outcome few might have imagined in such a crisis.

I cannot, for the life of me, imagine what it must’ve been like to be on that plane. Quite possibly the most horrifying words you can hear while on an airplane are “Brace for impact” and I understand that the passengers on board this flight had to hear those words repeated as the plane prepared to hit the water. This is an amazing story that, thankfully, has a very happy ending. My thoughts go out to all the passengers and crew of US Airways Flight 1549 today … while everything turned out well for them yesterday, I fear that the effects of the trauma might still come to plague them later on. Kudos and mad respect goes out to Capt. Chelsey Sullenberger … he truly is a hero. Well done!!

[Photo credit: Bauer-Griffin; Source]