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That is a seriously talented pilot. He makes it look like a natural maneuver but the margin for error was incredibly low.
by delano 18y ago
That is a seriously talented pilot. He makes it look like a natural maneuver but the margin for error was incredibly low.
- jayair 18y agoI'm not a pilot but if you replace the water with the runway you've got what seems like a perfect landing. Any HN'ers with aviation experience care to comment?
- noonespecial 18y agoWater is much harder. The drag as soon as you touch is incredible so the deceleration is nearly instant. He had to know to keep the gear up, the flaps not extended and touch at the perfect angle. Even then, there is a large element of chance. Most water ditchings end with the plane catching a surface in the water, cartwheeling and then breaking apart. Its hard enough to land planes that are designed with floats on the water. This was the perfect combination of luck and much skill, like an NBA player getting that buzzer shot from 3/4 court to win the game.
- mhb 18y agoIt was an incredible feat, but I don't think that knowing to keep the gear up when landing on water is particularly remarkable.
- jerf 18y agonoonespecial is not talking about landing gear, he's probably talking about things like this: http://www.metacafe.com/watch/48376/plane_crashes_on_water/ http://www.metacafe.com/watch/48376/plane_crashes_on_water/
- noonespecial 18y agoGood find. I was actually looking for that to illustrate the fate of most aircraft that attempt to ditch in water. And yes, I should have been more clear, "gear" would include landing gear (duh), engines, flaps, elevators, or anything else that might "snag" on contact with the water and cause this sort of outcome. The larger the aircraft, the harder it is to prevent this. There is a water landing emergency checklist that usually includes retracting the wheels, pulling in the flaps, etc but the angle and levelness of contact here was all art. Very cool to watch. I'm glad there were some security cameras that caught the actual landing.
- ckinnan 18y agoThat's a wreck in Ethopia where the hijacker grabbed the controls at the last moment before ditching and crashed the plane.
- jerf 18y agoI know, but it's a nice visual demonstration of how quickly things can go south in a water landing. Dip something into the water and it's just all over.
- JabavuAdams 18y agoIs he? If he had to do that 100 times, how many times would he succeed? What would be the average across all pilots for that type? What would be the variance? I'm happy he succeeded, this time, but I can't resist nitpicking the flaw in your argument. Can you tell I'm reading Fooled by Randomness?
- delano 18y agoYa, those are fair questions. I don't have the information to answer them objectively since I'm just a dirt farmer from Alabama but noonespecial explains it pretty well.
- gcv 18y agoAccording to news reports about him, Chesley Sullenberger is an excellent pilot. Yesterday's Times article about him (http://www.nytimes.com/2009/01/17/nyregion/17pilot.html http://www.nytimes.com/2009/01/17/nyregion/17pilot.html) says that he won the Outstanding Cadet in Airmanship award when he was at the Air Force Academy.