There still seems to be a slight risk that after careful further analysis it may be concluded (with the benefit of hindsight and after far longer to think about the matter than these pilots actually had at the time) that Captain Sullenberger almost certainly could have reached La Guardia or Teterborough safely and that while he got away with it he took a massive and unnecessary gamble with everyone's lives by ditching in the Hudson.
Is there in fact any previous recorded occurrence of an airliner that has managed to perform a safe planned low level engine-out landing at an airport, without major damage? Or, for that matter, any occurrences that did not go well?
LY 1862 comes to mind. On October 4, 1992, the 747-258F was climbing out after takeoff. At low altitude it lost 2 engines on one side, was subject to rapidly degrading hydraulic systems and with damage to its high lift devices (the latter most likely unknown to the crew) attempted to return to Schiphol Amsterdam airport. It circled over highly populated areas twice, failed to line up for the landing runway, stalled, and crashed into an appartment building killing the 4 persons on board and many in the building. With hindsight, if the aircraft had been diverted away from populated areas immediately and had ditched into the nearby Ijsselmeer, it would have required considerably less airborne time while still marginally controllable and the 4 persons on board would possibly have survived with no casualties on the ground.
With that accident in mind, Captain Sullenberger in my humble opinion, took the right decision to ditch.
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