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Old 23rd Jan 2009, 18:49
  #1146 (permalink)  
PJ2
 
Join Date: Mar 2003
Location: BC
Age: 76
Posts: 2,485
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Just like everything else that's been presented here, we don't know that the map isn't arbitrary. That's the whole problem, and benefit, of informed speculation. But there is no innate accuracy to the map at all, although it may turn out to be 100% correct.

The question that always must be kept in mind is, what can be observed from direct evidence. Our collective (and my) conclusions that both engines failed and that the aircraft was in alternate law and that the RAT was deployed and APU running may be incorrect given the new information just above. Speculation is fine so long as it has some experience behind it and isn't morphed into conclusions.

Capevermell;

Like many, I dont know what the rush is. Certainly our times need heroes but a lot of this is the media selling air-time, newspapers and magazines precisely to sell 'hero" in our times - they know upon which side their bread is buttered.

That said, because these kinds of events are extremely rare, it's not possible to reasonably compare accidents despite the temptation to do so. Neither TEB nor LGA presented attractive landing opportunities - short runways, much narrower constraints on a successful outcome and the possibility of under/overshooting a small mark, a high risk which was immediately removed by the river where time and distance permitted setting the aircraft up for a controlled forced landing. It was the right decision which will not need political correctness to ignore other outcomes, all of which would have been much higher risk. In such aviation incidents, it is hard to argue with this kind of success.
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