Highest Duty

by Chesley B. Sullenberger

  In the more common emergencies we train for, such as the loss of one engine, we would have time to go through our checklists and mull over solutions. In those cases, it is usually optimal for the first officer to fly so the captain can think about the situation, make decisions, and give direction.

  Even in those early seconds, I knew this was an emergency that called for thinking beyond what’s usually considered appropriate. As a rush of information came into my head, I had no doubts that it made the most sense for me to take the controls.

  The reasons were clear to me. For one, I had greater experience flying the A320. Jeff was much newer to this type of plane. Also, all the landmarks I needed to see in order to judge where we might go were on my side of the airplane.

  I also knew that since Jeff had just trained on the A320, he had more recent experience practicing the emergency procedures. He could more quickly find the right checklist out of about 150 checklists in our Quick Reference Handbook (QRH). He was the right man for that job.

  After I took control of the plane, two thoughts went through my mind, both rooted in disbelief: This can’t be happening. This doesn’t happen to me.

  I was able to force myself to set those thoughts aside almost instantly. Given the gravity of this situation, I knew that I had seconds to decide on a plan and minutes to execute it.

  I was aware of my body. I could feel an adrenaline rush. I’m sure that my blood pressure and pulse spiked. But I also knew I had to concentrate on the tasks at hand and not let the sensations in my body distract me.

  Jeff seemed to be equally on task. He was businesslike, focused on what he had to do. He would later say his brain felt swelled “like when you have a bad head cold,” but to me at the time, his voice and demeanor seemed unaffected. We both were very aware of how terrible this was. We just didn’t waste time verbalizing this awareness to each other.

  I’ve always kept in mind something said by astronaut John Young just before launch on a space mission. Asked if he was worried about the risks, or about the potential for catastrophe, he replied: “Anyone who sits on top of the largest hydrogen-oxygen fueled system in the world, knowing they’re going to light the bottom, and doesn’t get a little worried, does not fully understand the situation.”

  In our case, both Jeff and I clearly understood the gravity of our situation, and we were very concerned. Success would come if, at each juncture in the seconds ahead, we could solve the next problem thrown at us. Despite everything—the ruined plane, the sensations in my body, the speed with which we had to act—I had confidence that we could do it.

  THERE ARE three general rules about any aircraft emergency. We learn them in our earliest lessons as pilots. And for those of us who served in the military, these rules are codified.

  Maintain aircraft control.

  Always make sure someone is flying the airplane, and is focused on maintaining the best flight path. No matter what else happens, you have to remember to fly the plane first, because if you don’t, bad things can happen quickly.

  There will be impulses to do other things: getting your mind around the particulars of the emergency, troubleshooting, finding the right checklists, talking to air traffic control. All of these things need to be done, but not at the expense of flying the airplane.

  Analyze the situation and take proper action.

  Through our training, we know the actions we should consider depend upon what systems have failed and how much time and fuel we have to deal with the situation. There are specific procedural steps, and we need to know them and be ready to take them.

  Land as soon as conditions permit.

  This means we have to factor in weather and runway conditions, the wind, the length and width of the runway, the emergency and rescue equipment available at the particular airport where a landing might be attempted, and all sorts of other factors. It is important to land quickly but with due consideration. How well will emergency crews at the closest airport be able to help? Does it make more sense to fly to another airport with better weather or facilities?

  THOSE ARE the three basic rules. And there is a variation on these rules that pilots find easy to remember: “Aviate, navigate, communicate.”

  Aviate: Fly the plane. Navigate: Make sure your flight path is appropriate and that you’re not flying off course. Communicate: Let those on the ground help you, and let those on the plane know what might be necessary to save their lives.

  On Flight 1549, Jeff and I were doing all of these things almost simultaneously. We had no choice. That also meant we had to make sure that higher-priority tasks weren’t suffering as we worked to accomplish the lower-priority tasks.

  The first thing I did was lower the plane’s nose to achieve the best glide speed. For all of us on board to survive, the plane had to become an efficient glider.

  In the days that followed the Hudson landing, there was speculation in the media that all of my training as a glider pilot thirty-five years earlier had helped me on Flight 1549. I have to dispel that notion. The flight characteristics and speed and weight of an Airbus are completely different from the characteristics of the gliders I flew. It’s a night-and-day difference. So my glider training was of little help. Instead, I think what helped me was that I had spent years flying jet airplanes and had paid close attention to energy management. On thousands of flights, I had tried to fly the optimum flight path. I think that helped me more than anything else on Flight 1549. I was going to try to use the energy of the Airbus, without either engine, to get us safely to the ground…or somewhere.

  On Flight 1549, as we descended and I watched the earth came toward us faster than usual, the passengers did not immediately know how dire this was. They weren’t flying the airplane, and they didn’t have the training. Most probably, they couldn’t put all these disparate cues into a worldview that would tell them the magnitude of our problem. The nature of the emergency and the extreme time compression forced Jeff and me to focus our attention on the highest-priority tasks, so there was no time to make any verbal contact with those in the cabin, even the flight attendants.

  In the cockpit, Jeff and I never made eye contact, but from the few words he spoke and his overall demeanor and body language, I had the clear sense that he was not panicked. He was not distracted. He was working quickly and efficiently.

  Sullenberger (3:27:28): “Get the QRH… Loss of thrust on both engines.”

  Jeff grabbed the Quick Reference Handbook to find the most appropriate procedure for our emergency. The QRH book is more than an inch thick, and in previous editions, it had helpful numbered tabs sticking out of the edge of it. That made it easier for us to find the exact page we needed. You could hold it in your left hand and use it like an address book, grazing over the numbered tabs with your right hand before turning to the tab for, say, Procedure number 27.

  In recent years, however, in a cost-cutting move, US Airways had begun printing these booklets without the numbered tabs on the edge of the pages. Instead, the number of each procedure was printed on the page itself, requiring pilots to open the pages and thumb through them to get to the right page.

  On Flight 1549, as Jeff turned quickly through the pages of his QRH without tabs, it likely took him a few extra seconds to find the page he needed with the proper procedure. I told this to the National Transportation Safety Board in my testimony given in the days after the accident.

  We were over the Bronx at that point and I could see northern Manhattan out the window. The highest we ever got was just over three thousand feet, and now, still heading northwest, we were descending at a rate of over one thousand feet per minute. That would be equivalent to an elevator descending two stories per second.

  Twenty-one and a half seconds had passed since the bird strike. I needed to tell the controller about our situation. I needed to find a place to put the plane down quickly, whether back at LaGuardia or somewhere else. I began a left turn, looking for such a place.

  “MAYDAY! MAYDAY! Mayday!…”
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  That was my message—the emergency distress signal—to Patrick Harten, the controller, just after 3:27:32.9. My delivery was businesslike, but with a sense of urgency.

  Patrick never heard those words, however, because while I was talking, he was making a transmission of his own—to me. Once someone keys his microphone, he can’t hear what’s being said to him on the same frequency. While Patrick was giving me a routine direction—“Cactus fifteen forty-nine, turn left heading two seven zero”—my “Mayday” message was going no farther than our cockpit.

  I didn’t know that Patrick hadn’t heard me and that I hadn’t heard him. This is a regular and problematic issue in communications between controllers and pilots. When two people transmit simultaneously, they not only block each other, but they also sometimes prohibit others nearby from hearing certain transmissions. “Anti-blocking” devices have been invented that allow aircraft radios to detect when someone else is transmitting. That way, once a radio senses another transmission, it can prevent your radio from transmitting so you don’t block someone else. We could certainly use such devices or similar technology in our cockpits. All pilots have stories. There have been times when a pilot will bump his radio’s button, and for a few minutes, those of us in planes on the same frequency hear only background noise from that pilot’s cockpit. We can’t hear the controller. It is a potentially hazardous situation that has not been resolved because airlines and other operators have chosen not to adopt anti-blocking technology, and the FAA has not mandated it.

  Patrick’s transmission lasted about four seconds, and when he released his transmit button, he heard the rest of my transmission: “…This is, uh, Cactus fifteen thirty-nine. Hit birds. We’ve lost thrust in both engines. We’re turning back towards LaGuardia.”

  I had gotten the flight number wrong. Later, when I heard the tape, I detected a higher stress level in my voice. My voice quality was slightly raspy, slightly higher pitched. No one else might have noticed, but I could hear it.

  PATRICK, A thirty-four-year-old controller, had worked many thousands of flights in his ten years on the job, and had a reputation for being careful and diligent.

  He had assisted a few jets with failures of one engine, though none to the point where the plane had become a glider. He worked to get these flights back to the ground as quickly as possible, and in each case, the planes landed without incident. Like other controllers, he took pride in the fact that he had never failed in his attempts to help a plane in distress get safely to a runway.

  In Patrick’s previous emergencies, he had remained calm and acted intelligently.

  Once, he had a plane coming in from overseas. There was bad weather that day, and the plane had been held in holding patterns. Eventually, it had enough fuel to last just thirty more minutes. The plane was almost twenty minutes from the airport. If a new weather problem developed, or there was a further traffic delay, the plane could run out of fuel. Knowing there was no margin for error, Patrick had to pull another aircraft from its final approach, and slot in the plane with low fuel. He oversaw the rearranging of a jigsaw puzzle in the sky, and was able to help the plane land without incident.

  About fifteen times in his career, Patrick had pilots tell him that their planes had just hit birds. The worst bird strike he had ever handled before Flight 1549 involved a cracked windshield. Patrick had helped that airplane return to LaGuardia safely.

  Patrick certainly had his share of experiences with emergencies. But like almost every controller working in the world today, he had never been in a situation where he was guiding a plane that had zero thrust capability.

  In the case of Flight 1549, Patrick knew he had to act quickly and decisively. He made an immediate decision to offer us LaGuardia’s runway 13, which was the closest to our current position. At that moment, we were still heading away from LaGuardia and descending rapidly.

  He made no comment, of course, about the seriousness of the condition of our plane. He just responded.

  “OK, uh,” he radioed back to me. “You need to return to LaGuardia. Turn left heading of, uh, two two zero.”

  “Two two zero,” I acknowledged, because I knew all my options lay to my left. In the left turn, I would have to choose one, and the option I chose would determine the ultimate heading I would fly.

  From the cockpit voice recorder:

  Skiles (3:27:50): “If fuel remaining, engine mode selector, ignition. Ignition.”

  Sullenberger (3:27:54): “Ignition.”

  Skiles (3:27:55): “Thrust levers, confirm idle.”

  Sullenberger (3:27:58): “Idle.”

  Skiles (3:28:02): “Airspeed optimum relight. Three hundred knots. We don’t have that.”

  Flight warning computer (3:28:03): Sound of single chime.

  Sullenberger (3:28:05): “We don’t…”

  Patrick immediately contacted the tower at LaGuardia telling them to clear all runways. “Tower, stop your departures. We got an emergency returning.”

  “Who is it?” the tower controller asked.

  “It’s fifteen twenty-nine,” said Patrick, also getting the flight number wrong in the stress of the moment. “Bird strike. He lost all engines. He lost the thrust in the engines. He is returning immediately.”

  Losing thrust in both engines is so rare that the LaGuardia controller didn’t fully recognize what Patrick had just told him. “Cactus fifteen twenty-nine. Which engine?” he asked.

  Patrick replied: “He lost thrust in both engines, he said.”

  “Got it,” said the LaGuardia controller.

  You won’t hear it on the tape, because none of the controllers said it out loud, but in their minds they thought they were working a flight that would likely end very tragically.

  Worldwide, airliners lose thrust in all engines so rarely that a decade can pass between occurrences. Usually, planes lose thrust in all engines only when they fly through a volcanic ash cloud or there is a fuel problem. And in the case of a volcanic ash encounter, the pilots have had enough time to get their engines to restart once clear of the ash cloud. Because they were at a high enough altitude—well above thirty thousand feet—there was time to go through their procedures and work on a solution, to get at least one engine going again.

  In the case of Flight 1549, however, even if we were as high as the moon, we would never have gotten our engines restarted because they were irreparably damaged. Given the vibrations we felt coming from the engines, and the immediate loss of thrust, I was almost certain we’d never get the engines working again. And yet I knew we had to try.

  So while Jeff worked diligently to restart at least one engine, I focused on finding a solution. I knew we had fewer than a handful of minutes before our flight path would intersect the surface of the earth.

  I had a conceptual realization that unlike every other flight I’d piloted for forty-two years, this one probably wouldn’t end on a runway with the airplane undamaged.

  14. GRAVITY

  LESS THAN A minute had passed since the bird strikes ruined the engines on Flight 1549. At his radar position out on Long Island, Patrick, the controller, was still hoping he could get us to a runway at LaGuardia.

  Controllers guide pilots to runways. That’s what they do. That’s what they know best. So he wasn’t going to abandon that effort until every option had been exhausted. He figured that even in this most dire of situations, most pilots would have tried to make it back to LaGuardia. He assumed that would be my decision, too.

  Five seconds after 3:28 P.M., which was just 32 seconds after I first made Patrick aware of the emergency, he asked me: “Cactus fifteen twenty-nine, if we can get it to you, do you want to try to land runway one three?” Patrick was offering us the runway at LaGuardia that could be reached by the shortest path.

  “We’re unable,” I responded. “We may end up in the Hudson.”

  I knew intuitively and quickly that the Hudson River might be our only option, and so I articulated it. It felt almost unnatural to s
ay those words, but I said them. In his seat to my right, Jeff heard me and didn’t comment. He was busy trying to restart the engines. But he later told me he silently acknowledged my words in his own head, thinking I might have been right. The Hudson could turn out to be our only hope.

  We both knew that our predicament left us few choices. We were at a low altitude, traveling at a low speed, in a 150,000-pound aircraft with no engines. Put simply: We were too low, too slow, too far away, and pointed in the wrong direction, away from the nearby airports.

  If there had been a major interstate highway without overpasses, road signs, or heavy traffic, I could have considered landing on it. But there are very few stretches of interstate in America without those barriers these days, and certainly none of them are in New York, the nation’s largest metropolis. And, of course, I didn’t have the option of finding a farmer’s field that might be long enough and level enough. Not in the Bronx. Not in Queens. Not in Manhattan.

  But was I really ready to completely rule out LaGuardia?

  Looking out the window, I saw how rapidly we were descending. My decision would need to come in an instant: Did we have enough altitude and speed to make the turn back toward the airport and then reach it before hitting the ground? There wasn’t time to do the math, so it’s not as if I was making altitude-descent calculations in my head. But I was judging what I saw out the window and creating, very quickly, a three-dimensional mental model of where we were. It was a conceptual and visual process, and I was doing this while I was flying the airplane as well as responding to Jeff and Patrick.

  I also thought quickly about the obstacles between us and LaGuardia—the buildings, the neighborhoods, the hundreds of thousands of people below us. I can’t say I thought about all of this in any detail. I was quickly running through a host of facts and observations that I had filed away over the years, giving me a broad sense of how to make this decision, the most important one of my life.

  I knew that if I chose to turn back across this densely populated area, I had to be certain we could make it. Once I turned toward LaGuardia, it would be an irrevocable choice. It would rule out every other option. And attempting to reach a runway that was unreachable could have had catastrophic consequences for everyone on the airplane and who knows how many people on the ground. Even if we made it to LaGuardia and missed the runway by a few feet, the result would be disastrous. The plane would likely tear open and be engulfed in flames.