US Airways Flight 1549 discussion

[Munden]

This is a discussion thread for the following file:<br><br><b><a href=http://www.gearthhacks.com/dlfile31415/US-Airways-Flight-1549.htm>US Airways Flight 1549</a></b><br><br>Early indications are that US Airways Flight 1549 took a bird strike in each engine and the pilot safely &quot;landed&quot; the plane on the Hudson River.<br />
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150 passengers, 5 crew - no fatalities or even serious injuries.<br /><br /><img src=http://www.gearthhacks.com/showimage.php?image=112807/68362Untitled-1.jpg>

[Munden]

FBOWeb.com has a KML of the flight, based on GPS telemetry from their tracking system.

http://fboweb.com/kml/AWE1549.kml

[Jrod]

They say a bird strike caused the problem. Crazy a small bird take down an entire plan but it happens. Luckily everybody survived.

http://www.cnn.com/2009/US/01/15/new.york.plane.crash/index.html

[Captain Hornblower]

A single small bird usually doesn't take down an airliner. The engines must pass a "bird-strike-evaluation"; a frozen chicken (possibly something equal) is "shot" into a running engine. If the engine breaks down, it won't get the neccessary approval.
This morning (in Germany) they talked about a "flock of geese" which is a "little more" than a single small bird ;)

[Munden]

'birdstrike' is just a term. It can describe any number of birds. If it's the cause, it'll come out that the aircraft hit a flock of birds in order to knock out both engines.

They run tests with dead chickens on engines to make sure the turbine blades meet requirements and can ingest a decent sized bird without serious damage. Given the location, it could've been a flock of good sized sea birds or geese that they hit. Perhaps a large number of much smaller birds would have the same effect too.

Here are some videos of bird tests. Not hugely gory, but a little gross for some folks I suppose:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eUBv-ph4820

A bird strike on an aircraft in Manchester, where only one engine was lost:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9KhZwsYtNDE

F-16 bird strike and flameout:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gc-XiO4ojzk