THE pilot of US Airways Flight 1549, which ditched into New York’s Hudson River last month, calmly radioed to air traffic controllers: “We’re going to be in the Hudson.”

IN his first public comments about what it was like to safely land a passenger jet in the Hudson River, US Airways pilot Chesley “Sully” Sullenberger has described the ordeal as “surreal” and said the silence in the cockpit after both engines lost power was “shocking”.

Hundreds of people holding signs and waving American flags cheered wildly to honour the pilot who safely landed a US Airways jet in New York’s Hudson River.

THE investigation of the emergency crash landing of a US Airways jetliner will last a year and the lessons will go on for decades.