Miracle on Ice (Cold Waters)

I received the CNN Breaking News alert on my Blackberry yesterday at around 3:57 in the afternoon:

"A US Airways plane has gone down in the Hudson River near Manhattan. Emergency responders are en route. Go to CNN.com for further information on this developing story."

"This does not look good," I thought grimly. Perhaps due to my past constant flying as a management consultant, I have a casual interest in commercial aviation and accidents, and I wasn't aware of any commercial airliner which was able to successfully "ditch" into a body of water. It's said that given the speed of the airplane and speed of descent, hitting water is not that different than hitting concrete, which would compromise the integrity of the structure of the fuselage and the fuel tanks. Add to that the danger of drowning and hypothermia, and it was clear that commercial airplanes and water did not mix.

A few minutes later I received another message on my Blackberry, this time from our company's security office. It reiterated that a plane had gone down in the Hudson, and added:

"155 people on the US Airways Flight 1549 from New York - LaGuardia to Charlotte."
"No company employees are known to be on the flight."
"Casualties unknown at this time."
"Mass transit unaffected at this time."

I braced for the worst. With 155 people on board, this was a pretty packed flight, and the fact that it left from LaGuardia made the situation worse. This meant that the plane was full of fuel having just left it's departure point, meaning greater risk of fire and a heavier plane which theoretically would be more difficult to land safely. From my office in midtown Manhattan I could hear emergency vehicles with sirens blaring blazing eastward on 42nd Street.

But as news trickled in later on that evening, it was clear that that nothing short of a miracle had occurred aboard Flight 1549. Amazingly, there wasn't a single passenger seriously injured, let alone killed, in the accident. The pilot, Capt. C.B. "Sully" Sullenberger, had made an incredible landing, gliding perfectly on the surface of the Hudson with a heavy plane with no engines, and managed to keep the plane intact. Frankly, how could you not feel safe with a pilot named "Sully" Sullenberger?

Enhancing New Yorkers' reputation of great people in times of trial (see 9/11), an armada of passenger ferries, water taxis and other boats came to the rescue, bringing the airliners' passengers on board and throwing life jackets, while emergency responders and divers ensured the safety and health of all involved. And just like David Letterman said in his first monologue after 9/11: "If you didn't believe it before, and it's easy to understand how you might have been skeptical on this point, if you didn't believe it before, you can absolutely believe it now... New York City is the greatest city in the world."

It's a wonderful story and we can celebrate that everyone came out okay. Well, except those poor geese that got sucked into the engines which caused the engines to stall, of course.