Originally Posted by
takata
Hi,
One may look at Sullenberger's case and notice that communication with the cabin was barely nil until the last seconds of the flight before ditching, even if the decision to ditch in the Hudson was already taken a few minutes earlier. It seems that no passenger ever had enough time to find and wear its life jacket when the "brace for impact" order came from the captain's call.
In fact, very few of them (6% according to the report) had life jackets even when they had evacuated out onto the wings, over half managed to grab a seat cushion though... Who knows why - they were very lucky though as a result, the Hudson is not a very benign swimming environment at that time of year
I agree though - lack of lifejackets on doesn't indicate anything much about preparedness for anything
In fact, ditching could have been an option in the Hudson, but I don't think it was contemplated in the middle of the Atlantic ocean until the very last seconds, if they were running out of sky and speed.
I doubt ditching was contemplated - deciding to ditch implies some semblance of controlled flight, of which there is no evidence. They had speed to the end - just not forwards.