Sully's ditch was uber-impressive, but a landing of a modern airliner... in a friggin CORNFIELD???

This is way beyond the Gimli Glider!!

for the pilots!!

with neither engine working - really impressive

I remember that Sully landing in the Hudson - DU had a running thread - several of them

Same bird that Sully splashed!

Here's one of them that is pretty well detailed which includes dialog boxes showing the conversation between Sullenberger and his right seat man, Jeffrey Skiles as they tried repeatedly to restart both engines.

I'll never forget that afternoon

Even though the engine manufacturers fire frozen chickens into their engines during development, the danger of ingesting numerous live birds in short order is very difficult to mitigate.

Good for the guys in “the sharp end” bringing her down safely.

You're the resident expert on these matters - this could have been a major disaster -with 226 passengers plus crew - that's a lot of people.
I hate the word miracle in these moments - it's great skill.

I don't by any means consider myself an expert, just an avid enthusiast! I do very much appreciate the compliment, however.

I have been fascinated by aircraft from a very young age, and that has led to a fair amount of study, I suppose.

I am not a pilot, nor an A&P mechanic, but I have some small experience working as a Parts Manager for an FBO in South Florida years ago.

But you are correct; It could have been a total loss with all the passengers killed. Aircraft have been utterly destroyed in incidents much less severe.

Here's a Google Earth shot of the airport mentioned. Looks as if it has only one active runway, with the land under either approach mostly farms for about 2 miles to the northwest and 5 miles to the southeast. If they had gotten any higher and further away from the airport particularly to the north, they could possibly have come down in a residential area.

https://goo.gl/maps/LLcoCZoqTQb8PKcx8

Give thanks for the farms - thanks for the map

but you still need a place to land. Pilots flying in familiar areas have that advantage. Hats off to the pilot.

I bet twitler is really upset about this.

McMike

Nicely put

They always promote the pilot to "Hero". It never seems to occur to them that the main life he was attempting to save was his own. The rest is just the result of the opposite of collateral damage...collateral heroism???