See "Fly by Wire: The Geese, the Glide, the Miracle on the Hudson", by William Langewiesche. He points out that pulling the stick all the way back in a near-st

See "Fly by Wire: The Geese, the Glide, the Miracle on the Hudson", by William Langewiesche. He points out that pulling the stick all the way back in a near-stall is what you're supposed to do in an Airbus. That tells the flight control system to do all it can to reduce the sink rate but to avoid a stall. Lacking engine power, the control system was able to provide a controlled crash. (If the engines had been providing power, the control system would have throttled them up.) Making the decision to ditch in the Hudson, rather than trying for, say, Teterboro and running out of altitude, was the important pilot action. The real miracle of that episode was that there were enough boats nearby, including large ferries, to rescue everyone before the aircraft sank.