Highest Duty

by Chesley B. Sullenberger

  Enhanced Ground Proximity Warning System synthetic voice (3:29:55): “Pull up. Pull up. Pull up. Pull up. Pull up. Pull up.”

  Skiles (3:30:01): “Got flaps out!”

  Skiles (3:30:03): “Two hundred fifty feet in the air.”

  The plane continued to descend, and it was as if the bluffs along the Hudson and the skyscrapers on both sides of the shoreline had come up to meet us. As Jeff would later describe it: “It felt as if we were sinking into a bathtub.” The river below us looked cold.

  Ground Proximity Warning System synthetic voice (3:30:04): “Too low. Terrain.”

  Ground Proximity Warning System (3:30:06): “Too low. Gear.”

  Skiles (3:30:06): “Hundred and seventy knots.”

  Skiles (3:30:09): “Got no power on either one. Try the other one.”

  Radio from another plane (3:30:09): “Two one zero, uh, forty-seven eighteen. I think he said he’s goin’ in the Hudson.”

  Enhanced Ground Proximity Warning System synthetic voice (3:30:15): “Caution, terrain!”

  Skiles (3:30:16): “Hundred and fifty knots.”

  Skiles (3:30:17): “Got flaps two, you want more?”

  Sullenberger (3:30:19): “No, let’s stay at two.”

  Sullenberger (3:30:21): “Got any ideas?”

  Skiles (3:30:23): “Actually, not.”

  Enhanced Ground Proximity Warning System synthetic voice (3:30:23): “Caution, terrain.”

  Enhanced Ground Proximity Warning System synthetic voice (3:30:24): “Terrain, terrain. Pull up. Pull up.” [“Pull up” repeats until the end of the recording.]

  Sullenberger (3:30:38): “We’re gonna brace!”

  I did not think I was going to die. Based on my experience, I was confident that I could make an emergency water landing that was survivable. That confidence was stronger than any fear.

  Lorrie, Kate, and Kelly did not come into my head, either. I think that was for the best. It was vital that I be focused, and that I allow myself no distractions. My consciousness existed solely to control the flight path.

  As we came in for a landing, without thrust, the only control I had over our vertical path was pitch—raising or lowering the nose of the plane. My goal was to maintain a pitch attitude that would give the proper glide speed. In essence, I was using the earth’s gravity to provide the forward motion of the aircraft, slicing the wings through the air to create lift.

  My flight instruments were still powered. I could see the airspeed indication. If I was slower than I needed to be, I slightly lowered the nose. If I felt we were going too fast, I raised the nose.

  As a fly-by-wire airplane, the Airbus has some flight envelope protections, which means the flight control computers interpret the pilot’s sidestick inputs. Unlike more conventional aircraft, the Airbus does not provide the pilot with natural cues or “feel” that speed is changing, which would normally help the pilot maintain constant speed. But one of the fly-by-wire protections when flying at low speeds is that regardless of how hard the pilot pulls back on the sidestick, the flight control computers will not allow him to stall the wings and lose lift.

  Compared with a normal landing, our rate of descent was much greater, since we had no engine thrust. Our landing gear was up, and I tried to keep the wings level to avoid cartwheeling when we hit the water. I kept the nose up.

  My focus had narrowed as we descended, and now I was looking in only two places: the view of the river directly ahead and, inside the cockpit, the airspeed display on my instruments. Outside-inside-outside-inside.

  It was only about three minutes since the bird strike, and the earth and the river were rushing toward us. I was judging the descent rate and our altitude visually. At that instant, I judged it was the right time. I began the flare for landing. I pulled the sidestick back, farther back, finally full aft, and held it there as we touched the water.

  We landed and slid along the surface in a slightly nose-up attitude. The rear of the plane hit much harder than the front. Those in the back felt a violent impact. Those in front felt it as more of a hard landing.

  We slowed down, leveled out, and then came to a stop as the river water splashed over the cockpit windows. I would later learn that I had achieved most of the parameters I attempted: The plane had landed with the nose at 9.8 degrees above the horizon, the wings were exactly level, and we were flying at 125.2 knots, just above the minimum speed for that configuration. The rate of descent, however, even with full aft stick commanding full nose up, could not be arrested as much as I would have liked.

  Within a second or two, we returned to the slightly nose-up attitude and the plane was floating. The skyline of New York presented itself from sea level.

  Jeff and I turned to each other and, almost in unison, said the same thing.

  “That wasn’t as bad as I thought.”

  Still, we knew that the hardest part of this emergency might still be ahead. There were 155 passengers and crew members on a plane that might soon be sinking.

  15. ONE HUNDRED FIFTY-FIVE

  THE WATER LANDING certainly wasn’t as bad as Jeff and I knew it could have been. We didn’t cartwheel when we touched down. The aircraft remained intact. The fuel didn’t ignite. Our recognition of all that went right was a slight release of tension. I guess it was an understated acknowledgment that we might yet succeed in keeping everyone on board alive.

  Of course, there was no time or inclination to celebrate.

  Yes, it was a relief that one of the biggest problems we faced that day had been solved: We had gotten the plane down and brought it to a stop in one piece. But we weren’t out of the woods yet. This was not yet a successful outcome.

  I sensed that the plane was still intact, even though the moment of impact had been a hard jolt, especially in the back of the plane. I assumed that the passengers were probably OK. I’d later learn that some had their glasses knocked from their faces during the landing. Others hit their heads on the seat backs in front of them. But few passengers were seriously injured on impact. After the plane settled in the water, I heard no screaming or shouting from the cabin. Through the cockpit door, I heard just muffled conversation. I knew that the passengers were likely looking out their windows at the dark green water in the river, feeling stunned.

  Seconds after the airplane stopped, Jeff turned to the evacuation checklist. The list is split between the captain and first officer, but the captain’s duties—including setting the parking brake—are only useful on land, or if we had working engines. I decided not to waste time on things that would have no benefit to our situation there on the river. Jeff’s checklist took him ten or fifteen seconds to complete. He checked that the aircraft was un-pressurized and that the engine and APU (auxiliary power unit) fire push buttons were pushed.

  As he did that, I opened the cockpit door and stated one word, loudly: “Evacuate!”

  In the front of the cabin, by the left and right doors, Donna and Sheila were ready for my order. I hadn’t had time to inform them during the descent that we were landing in water. But once they saw where we were, they immediately knew what to do. They changed their commands to “Don life vests; come this way!”

  They knew to assess the exits carefully. They had to make sure the plane wasn’t on fire on the other side of the door and that there were no jagged metal pieces. They knew not to open a door if that portion of the plane was under water. The good news was that we could tell by the attitude of the plane that the forward doors were above the waterline. And so they opened them.

  The slide rafts are supposed to inflate when the doors open. That happened correctly on the right side of the plane. On the left side, however, the raft didn’t automatically inflate and had to be deployed manually.

  A far more dangerous issue: The back of the plane was quickly filling up with ice-cold river water. We later learned that the bottom of the aft end of the fuselage had been violently torn open by our contact with the water when we landed. A rear exit door had been partially open
ed, very briefly, and couldn’t be closed completely, which also brought water into the cabin. The plane was gradually taking on a more tail-low attitude.

  Doreen, stationed in the rear of the aircraft, had a deep gash in her leg, the result of metal that had sliced through the floor from the cargo compartment when the plane hit the water. Though the water level rose quickly, she was able to make her way past floating garbage cans and coffeepots, urging passengers to move forward toward usable exits. After she got into the right-front slide raft—actually an inflatable slide that doubles as a raft—a doctor and a nurse who were passengers put a tourniquet around her leg.

  Because the waterline was above the bottom of the aft doors, the emergency slide rafts at the aft doors were useless. That meant we needed to use the two overwing exits, which normally wouldn’t be opened when a plane is in water. One passenger struggled to push open an overwing window exit. Another knew the exit needed to be pulled into the cabin, and did so. This second passenger had been in the emergency row and, luckily, had the presence of mind to read the instructions after we hit the birds. He knew he might be called upon to act and he prepared himself.

  As the evacuation began, passengers seemed understandably tense and serious—some were pretty agitated, hurriedly jumping over seats—but most were orderly. A few later called it “controlled panic.”

  Since the rear exits were not usable, people were bunching up at the wing exits. There was still room in the rafts up front, so Donna, Sheila, and I kept calling for passengers to come forward. I didn’t observe people trying to get their luggage, but I later learned some of them did, against the advice of other passengers. One woman, who had collected her purse and suitcase, would later slip on the wing, which sent her suitcase into the river. Another man held his garment bag while standing on the wing, an unnecessary accessory at a time like that.

  Jeff noticed that some people still on the plane were having trouble finding their life vests. The life vests are under the seats, and not easy to spot. Jeff told people where the vests were. Some passengers went out on the wings carrying their seat cushions, because they didn’t realize there were life vests available to them.

  As passengers exited, Jeff and I, along with some young male passengers, gathered more life vests, jackets, coats, and blankets to hand to people shivering out on the wings. We kept handing them out of the plane, as those who were on the wings and in the life rafts shouted that they needed more. The temperature outside was twenty-one degrees, and the windchill factor was eleven. The water was about thirty-six degrees. Those standing on both wings were in water above their ankles, and eventually, some would be in water almost up to their waists. Eric Stevenson had to kneel for balance because late in the rescue the left wing had lifted out of the water as the plane tilted to the right. Its upper surface was “like an ice rink,” he thought.

  Flight attendants train to empty a plane of passengers in ninety seconds. That’s the FAA certification standard. But doing the training in an airplane hangar, with 150 calm volunteers, is a bit different from attempting it in freezing weather in the middle of the Hudson River.

  I was proud of how fast the crew got everyone off the plane. The last passenger left the aircraft about three and a half minutes after the evacuation began, even with the aft exit doors unusable and water entering the aft cabin.

  Once the plane emptied I walked down the center aisle, shouting: “Is anyone there? Come forward!”

  I walked all the way to the back and then returned to the front. Then I took the same walk again. The second time, the water in the back of the plane was so high that I got wet almost up to my waist. I had to stand on the seats as I made my way back to the bulkhead. The cabin was in good shape. The overhead bins were closed, except for a few in the aft part of the cabin. The seats were all still in place.

  When I got back to the front, Sheila was in the slide raft on the right side of the plane with a full load of passengers, but was having difficulty detaching it from the airplane. Standing inside the plane, I lifted the Velcro strip that set them free.

  Jeff, Donna, and I were the final three people inside the plane. As I finished that final walk down the aisle, Donna spoke to me in no uncertain terms. “It’s time to go!” she said. “We’ve got to get off this plane!”

  “I’m coming,” I told her.

  As is protocol, I grabbed the emergency locator transmitter (ELT) from the forward part of the cabin and handed it to a passenger in the left-front slide raft. Donna got into that same raft and I went into the cockpit to get my overcoat. I also grabbed the aircraft maintenance logbook. I left everything else behind. I reminded Jeff to get his life vest. I already had mine. I handed my overcoat to a male passenger in the left-front raft who was cold.

  After Jeff stepped out, I took one final look down the aisle of the sinking plane. I knew the passengers had all made it out. But I wasn’t sure if some of them might have slipped into the near-freezing water. How would I describe my state of mind at that moment, as a captain abandoning his aircraft? I guess I was still busily trying to keep ahead of the situation—anticipating, planning, and checking. There was no time to indulge my own feelings. The 154 people outside the aircraft were my responsibility still, even though I knew that rescuers would be working to pick us all up.

  By the time I got into the raft, there were already boats around the airplane. The rafts are designed to accommodate forty-four people, with a maximum overload capacity of fifty-five. But we had fewer than forty people on our raft on the left side of the plane, and it felt pretty crowded. I saw no one crying or sobbing. There was no shouting or screaming. People were relatively calm, though in shock from the enormity of our experience. Though we were packed extremely tightly, no one was pushing. People were just waiting to be rescued, and there wasn’t much conversation at all. Everyone was very cold, and we were shivering. Though I was wet from walking in water to the back of the cabin, my recollection is that in our raft the bottom was pretty dry.

  It was fortuitous that we landed in the river right around Forty-eighth Street, just as several high-speed catamaran ferries were preparing for the afternoon rush hour. Across the river in New Jersey, at the NY Waterway Port Imperial/Weehawken Ferry Terminal, the boats’ captains and deckhands were shocked to see our plane splash into the water. They were riveted by the sight of passengers almost immediately escaping from the plane. And in that instant, without being contacted by authorities and on their own initiative, they quickly headed our way. Fourteen boats ended up assisting us, their crews and passengers doing whatever they could to get us to safety.

  Ferries aren’t designed as rescue ships, of course, but the deckhands rose to the challenges before them. Many had trained and drilled for such an emergency. Others adapted to the situation and worked by their wits.

  The first vessel to reach us, just three minutes and fifty-five seconds after we came to a stop in the water, was the Thomas Jefferson, under the command of Captain Vince Lombardi of NY Waterway. He began the rescue of passengers from the right wing. His vessel would eventually rescue fifty-six people, more than any other vessel that day.

  The Moira Smith, the second vessel to arrive, commanded by Captain Manuel Liba, approached our raft. I shouted to the crew members on that boat, “Rescue people on the wings first!” Passengers on the wings were obviously in a more precarious situation. None of the passengers on our raft objected as the boat turned away from us. People really did seem to grasp the entire scope of the situation, rather than just their individual needs, and I was grateful for their goodwill. Those shivering in our raft clearly understood that the people standing in water on the wings had to be rescued first.

  I wanted to get a head count. I knew there were 150 passengers and 5 crew members on the plane. Could we add up those in the rafts and on the wings and see if we’d reach 155?

  I asked those on my raft to count: “One, two, three, four…”

  I then yelled to a man on the left wing to get a count of peop
le on his wing. He tried, but the process was soon overcome by events, and besides, by this time, people were already being rescued and taken off the wings and rafts. I couldn’t see the raft and the wing on the other side of the airplane or communicate with the people over there. So we never were able to get any kind of count while still on the river.

  Our raft remained tethered to the left side of the airplane and Jeff expressed concern that as the plane continued to take on water and ride lower, it might eventually pull the slide raft down and tip people out into the river. He spent several minutes trying to disconnect us from the plane.

  “I can’t get it undone!” he said as the plane inched lower in the water. A knife is stored on each raft, but with so many people crammed together, and so much going on, it wasn’t immediately evident to us where the knife was. I knew that deckhands on boats usually carry knives. So I shouted to someone on the raft closer to the ferry to call up for a knife. A folding knife was produced, tossed toward our raft (a woman passenger caught it), and Jeff was able to cut us loose.

  WHEN PASSENGERS were later asked how long they waited for the lifeboats to arrive, some estimated it took fifteen minutes or longer. Actually, the first ferry had arrived in under four minutes. Standing in freezing water, after the trauma of a life-threatening emergency, can alter a person’s sense of time. After just a few minutes outside in the water, many of those on the wing were unable to stop shaking. A quick rescue was imperative to minimize hypothermia.

  One passenger had jumped into the water and began swimming to the New York side of the river. He soon thought better of it, given the water temperature, and swam back. Other passengers pulled him into our raft, and we saw that he was unable to stop shaking.

  One of our passengers was Derek Alter, a first officer for Colgan Air. “Sir, you have to get out of these clothes, and you have to do it now,” Derek told the man who had been in the water. Derek took off his first officer’s uniform shirt, gave it to the man, and then kept his arm around him to keep him warm. (Derek later said that it was his Boy Scout training that helped him know that the man needed to get out of his wet clothes immediately.)