hmmmmm
You take off, your doing 200 kts in the climb, you hit about 3400 feet, you lose your engines...you look around, nothing but buildings, a big river, and the runway behind you.
You have two choices, 180 back to the runway, at 3000 + ft, you get about a 3 mile glide in clean configuration...you take your chances there isn't a plane on the runway, that you judge it correctly and don't land long or short....
Or you go for the river...you don't have to pick a landing spot, you have miles to glide over water, with the longest flare you can imagine, to land as softly and smoothly as you can. This latter choice guarantees no post crash fire, this aircraft is designed for ditching, and river rescue, ferries, boats are literaly minutes away.
The skill here wasn't in flying, gliding, landing, picking a spot, airspeed control, but choosing to land there, vs all these other guys that have figured yet another way to fly an airliner to the scene of the accident.
Hat's off to the the pilot who chose to ditch, and put lives before trying to save the equipment
Birds: Fact of life, we can't regulate them away, train them to fly around airports.