A federal safety panel issued more than two dozen recommendations related to the airliner that ditched into the Hudson River after colliding with geese last year. Those include making aircraft engines more bird-resistant, equipping every passenger plane with life vests and requiring enough accessible life rafts for all passengers.
The National Transportation Safety Board said it was entirely due to chance that US Airways Flight 1549 had such equipment on board on Jan. 15 last year, when the Airbus A320 collided with a flock of Canada geese.
The plane had just taken off from New York’s LaGuardia Airport and was bound for Charlotte, North Carolina. It was not required under Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) regulations to have equipment for water landings on board. Only planes flying more than 80km from shore must have such equipment, the board said.
Captain Chesley “Sully” Sullenberger made a split-second decision to glide the airliner with 155 people aboard into the river rather than risk crashing into a densely populated area by trying to reach an airport.
When the plane hit the water, there was a rupture in the fuselage near the tail and water gushed in. Everyone on board survived, but it was a close call.
Ferries and rescue craft nearby were able to remove survivors quickly, but if the passengers on the rafts had been forced into the 5ºC water it’s possible many of them would have suffered “cold shock” — a phenomenon that can lead to drowning within as few as five minutes, the board said.
The board also recommended making life vests easier for passengers to retrieve and put on correctly. Only 33 passengers reported putting on a life vest and only four completed fastening their vest.
Another key recommendation was that the FAA examine whether population increases of large bird species like the Canada goose have increased the likelihood of collisions.
In November, a Frontier Airlines Airbus A319 en route to Denver collided with a flock of snow geese, forcing the shutdown of one engine and significantly damaging the other. The plane returned to Kansas City for an emergency landing.
If there are more collisions with large birds, the board wants the FAA to revise its certification standards for aircraft engines to ensure they can withstand impacts with larger birds. It also wants the FAA to examine the way it tests the ability of small and medium-sized aircraft engines to reflect operating conditions at low altitudes, which is where most bird strikes occur.
It may be time “for another leap forward in engine standards,” board chairman Deborah Hersman told reporters.
Sullenberger’s decision to ditch into the river “provided the highest probability that the accident would be survivable,” the board said.
Documents released by the board indicate the plane could have made it back to LaGuardia — barely. However, a successful return would have required Sullenberger to make an immediate decision with little or no time to assess the situation.
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