Originally Posted by
grizzled
Yes indeed, but remember one was a planned ditching, meaning Sully intended to ditch in the Hudson (albeit he had few viable options). Air Niugini was not intending to hit the water (we hope...). So the configurations (including gear down for Air Niugini, gear up for Sully) and speeds at impact would have been sufficiently different to account for damage and injuries.
Was it ever confirmed that the gear was down? Lots of unanswered questions - really don't know what configuration Air Niugini was in or where the crew thought they were (WestJet at St-Maarten comes to mind). Kind of interestng to read the PPPRuNe thread on Sully's attempts to flare though.
I'm a bit surprised that there hasn't been an attempt to raise it yet. JA2 was up in 55 hours (yes this is not SF but really, a month?).