Learning From a Role Model
By Tom Benenson
May 2009
 Just as gourmands judge a meal by the quality of the dessert, nonpilot passengers rate a pilot's skills by the landing at the end of the flight.
No question, based on their recent "landing" Captain Chesley B. "Sully" Sullenberger and First Officer Jeff Skiles, of US Airways Flight 1549, have gotten top marks for their piloting ability.
By now everyone knows that the pilots of the January 15, 2009, Airbus A320 flight, scheduled from La Guardia (LGA) to Charlotte (CLT), were forced to make a dead stick landing in New York's Hudson River after losing both engines to bird strikes.
People unfamiliar with the Hudson River are impressed that Sully (his demeanor encourages the use of his nickname) managed to get the airplane onto the river, but the river is much wider than any runway. No, it was the skill that Sully and his crew had to demonstrate correctly, from the moment of the collision with the formation of geese to the touchdown on the water to the safe evacuation of the 155 people onboard, that was extraordinary. It was a heroic effort by the entire crew and gave aviation a positive boost.
It would be nice to think that all pilots are trained to deal with an emergency the way the crew did. But some of us have probably become a bit rusty on the piloting skills that Sully and Jeff relied on to achieve the miraculous outcome.
The situation that Sully and his crew faced was essentially a combination of three different challenges; handling any one of them improperly would have likely resulted in a starkly different conclusion. In sequence the crew was faced with a bird strike, a dead stick landing and a water ditching. But, in addition to basking in the superb performance by fellow aviators, it's worth taking a moment to consider how we would respond to the circumstances that confronted the crew.
Typical general aviation airplanes have an advantage over jet airplanes when it comes to damage from bird strikes. Our piston-powered airplanes don't go as fast as turbine-powered airplanes so birds can more easily get out of our way. If we do run over a bird, rather than having it get sucked into the engine and tear things up, our propellers work pretty well to mess up a bird's forward progress. For general aviation airplanes the more likely concern is with imploding windscreens and airframe damage from collisions.
The damage can be significant. A friend recently recounted a bird strike in his Cessna 185. He was flying at 8,500 feet on a very dark night under a 10,000-foot overcast with no moon or starlight. With no warning, he said, there was a huge bang and the airplane rapidly rolled right. He was able to regain control with full left aileron and about half left rudder. Since his flashlight revealed no obvious damage to either wing he assumed a bird hit the vertical stabilizer. He managed to make a wheel landing at his destination, keeping his speed up to 105 knots with no flaps and fire trucks standing by. His airplane had struck three geese, apparently in formation. One made a 38-inch "bathtub" dent in the top leading part of the right wing root; the second split the leading edge in half with a 4-foot-long, 18-inch-wide section of the upper wing peeled up and back like a spoiler just outboard of the top of the strut; and the third bird made an 8-inch wide "V" in the leading edge near the tip.
In the dark, he wasn't able to see the geese, but as a general rule, if you do see birds you're better off climbing to fly above them. Their inclination in a panic situation is to dive toward the ground.
Some other rules regarding avoiding bird strikes include flying high since very few bird strikes occur above 2,500 feet. It's also a good practice to avoid flying over bird and wildlife sanctuaries marked on sectional charts. Areas along shore lines or along rivers are popular with birds as well as with pilots using them for navigation.
The risk of a strike is at its greatest in July and August since many inexperienced young birds are trying their wings, and the flying abilities of adults may be impaired as they molt their flight feathers.
The slower you fly, the more likely birds can avoid your airplane and the less damage from a strike. Using landing lights during takeoff, climb, descent, approach and landing will make your airplane more visible. And there have been some studies that indicate pulsing landing/taxi lights help birds avoid airplanes. Whatever happens, remember fly the airplane!
The decision by Sully and the crew to land on the river couldn't have been easy. The misguided instinctive tendency when an emergency occurs during departure is, unfortunately, for pilots to try to turn back to the airport. Even the Airbus crew considered the option.
After calling departure as the Airbus passed through 700 feet, the crew was cleared to 5,000 feet and then to 15,000 feet and advised to turn to a heading of 270. Within seconds the pilot radioed, "Ah, this is uh Cactus Fifteen Forty Nine hit birds we lost thrust in both engines. We're turning back towards La Guardia."
The Airbus was at an altitude that allowed Captain Sullenberger to momentarily consider turning back to land at La Guardia, but it quickly became obvious to him that wasn't going to work. "I'm not sure if we can make any runway. Oh, what's over to our right anything in New Jersey? Maybe Teterboro?"
The controller gave him a heading to Teterboro, "Cactus Fifteen Twenty Nine [sic] turn right two-eight-zero. Can land Runway One at Teterboro."
But it was obvious that that too wasn't going to work. "We can't do it."
"Which runway would you like at Teterboro?"
"We're gonna be in the Hudson."
Discuss this article in our forums
| 
Copyright @ 2009 Bonnier Corp. All Rights Reserved. Reproduction in whole or in part without permission is prohibited.
