The Safety Board’s full report is available at http://www.ntsb.gov/publictn/A_Acc1.htm. The Aircraft Accident Report number is NTSB/AAR-10/03. On January 15, 2009, about 1527 eastern standard time, US Airways flight 1549, an Airbus Industrie A320-214, N106US, experienced an almost complete loss of thrust in both engines after encountering a flock of birds and was subsequently ditched on the Hudson River about 8.5 miles from LaGuardia Airport (LGA), New York City, New York. The flight was en route to Charlotte Douglas International Airport, Charlotte, North Carolina, and had departed LGA about 2 minutes before the in-flight event occurred. The 150 passengers, including a lap held child, and 5 crewmembers evacuated the airplane via the forward and overwing exits. One flight attendant and four passengers were seriously injured, and the airplane was substantially damaged. The scheduled, domestic passenger flight was operating under the provisions of 14 Code of Federal Regulations Part 121 on an instrument flight rules flight plan. Visual meteorological conditions prevailed at the time of the accident.
The ingestion of large birds into each engine, which resulted in an almost total loss of thrust in both engines and the subsequent ditching on the Hudson River. Contributing to the fuselage damage and resulting unavailability of the aft slide/rafts were (1) the Federal Aviation Administration’s approval of ditching certification without determining whether pilots could attain the ditching parameters without engine thrust, (2) the lack of industry flight crew training and guidance on ditching techniques, and (3) the captain’s resulting difficulty maintaining his intended airspeed on final approach due to the task saturation resulting from the emergency situation. Contributing to the survivability of the accident was (1) the decision-making of the flight crewmembers and their crew resource management during the accident sequence; (2) the fortuitous use of an airplane that was equipped for an extended overwater flight, including the availability of the forward slide/rafts, even though it was not required to be so equipped; (3) the performance of the cabin crewmembers while expediting the evacuation of the airplane; and (4) the proximity of the emergency responders to the accident site and their immediate and appropriate response to the accident.
| Time | Event | Page |
|---|---|---|
| engine start | First recording discontinuity after engine 2 spooled up enough for generator 2 to power AC bus 2 and the Flight Data Interface Unit | 3 |
| before takeoff | Fluctuations in indicated airspeed before takeoff indicate the FDIU was not receiving valid airspeed at that time | 8 |
| about 15:27:19 EST | Second recording discontinuity during the accident flight (annotated on the plots; not long enough to reset the FDIU frame counter) | 3 |
| about 15:28:30 EST | Third recording discontinuity during the accident flight | 3 |
| about 15:27-15:31 EST | Bird ingestion into both engines, loss of thrust and landing in the Hudson River (engine parameters, flight controls, flaps/slats/spoilers, roll/yaw, electrical and smoke parameters presented in plots 1-12; recording ended 5 minutes 49 seconds after takeoff thrust) | 8 |
365 transcribed utterances from 15:00:32 to 15:30:42, 28 sources. Final entries:
| 15:30:38 | HOT-2 | * * switch? |
| 15:30:40 | HOT-1 | yes. |
| 15:30:41.1 | GPWS | (fifty or thirty) |
| 15:30:42 | FWC | retard. 15:30:43.7 [End of Recording] 15:30:43.7 [End of Transcript] |
| 15:30:42 | CVR | Group Chairman’s Factual Report Page 47 of 47 |
Docket: data.ntsb.gov/Docket/?NTSBNumber=DCA09MA026. This brief is an analytical aid assembled from public records; it is not an investigative finding.