Crash pilot calm all the way

Details of the calm manner in which the Hudson River jet crash captain handled the emergency were revealed today.

In recordings taken from the US Airways’ planes black box flight recorders Chesley Sullenberger reports that the plane has hit birds and lost both engines shortly after investigators heard “the sound of thumps and a rapid decrease in engine sounds”.

Capt. Sullenberger then discussed alternate landings at New Jersey airports before deciding to attempt a river landing. Ninety seconds before ditching the plane, he told passengers to “brace for impact” and informed controllers “they will be in the Hudson River”.

The dispatches on the cockpit voice recorder were described as “a very calm, collected exercise,” by the US National Transportation Safety Board.

“It was very matter of fact,” said a spokesman.

Initial indications from radar data of the plane’s take off last Thursday from LaGuardia Airport “did not show any targets” that might be birds. But investigators will keep looking, he said.

“We are going to go and get all the electronic data necessary to get a complete picture of what was on his screen. It’s possible there was more being displayed than we initially understood. We just don’t know definitively at this point – we don’t know exactly what was shown on that radar screen,” Knudson said.

Capt. Sullenberger, who has so far not publicly talked about the crash, has been invited to attend President-elect Barack Obama’s inauguration tomorrow.

Under a heavy snowfall yesterday tugs pulled the barge carrying the Airbus A320 from a seawall a few blocks from the World Trade Centre site on a 90-minute trip to a New Jersey marina.

Investigators today want to look more closely at the cockpit, the attached right engine, and the interior of the cabin.

Already investigators have seen significant damage to the tail and to compartments at the bottom of the plane that opened on impact. The right engine was severely dented but its fan blades were intact.

The search for the plane’s missing left engine is suspended until tomorrow because ice floes in the river make it too dangerous to put divers or special sonar equipment in the water.

A senior NTSB official said the probe may ultimately focus more on what went right than what went wrong on Thursday.

“This accident and this investigation are going to be studied for years and years and years,” he said. “Why did everything work so well?

“We need to know that so we can apply it to other phases of aviation, other aircraft, perhaps newer aircraft. It’s going to be fun.”