The Miracle on the Hudson, Ejection Database, and A319 Landing Incident

Anniversary of the Miracle on the Hudson
One year after the ditching of US Airways flight 1549 in the Hudson River, the NTSB investigation is still ongoing. While the investigation may not be completed for several months, there is a large amount of information from the investigation that is available for the public to review. The NTSB information page on last June's public meeting about the accident has links to past NTSB press releases, and links to transcripts and videos from the three day public hearing. Additional information on the accident is available at the NTSB's public docket for this investigation.

Ejection Seat Database
If you ever had a question about military plane crashes featuring the use of an ejection seat, then Project Get Out and Walk is worth a visit. The site is an illustrated history of assisted aircrew escape system and has a database of all known ejections and bailouts, with ejections listed by year, country, and aircraft.

United Airlines Emergency Landing at Newark
On January 10th, a United Airlines Airbus A319 (N816UA, flight 634)was damaged when it landed at Newark's Liberty International Airport with its right hand main landing gear retracted. The aircraft was on a scheduled flight from Chicago's O'Hare airport, to Newark, and the flight was normal until approach, when the crew experienced problems with lowering the landing gear.

The crew carried out a missed approach, and later landed with the right main gear retracted and came to rest on the runway, damaging the right engine and the underside of the aircraft. All 48 passengers and five crew members evacuated using the emergency slides and there were no major injuries.

This being the Twitter era, it isn't surprising that there were a few Tweets (Twitter posts) on this event. A passenger on another aircraft with Twitter name @expodebbie said: On runway. Newark just closed. Another aircraft with bad landing- mechanical issues. Emergency vehicles. Zero idea just how bad. 6:28 AM Jan 10th

Below are several photos of the damaged aircraft, plus a video of the actual landing taken from the cockpit of another aircraft.

Comparison of Eight Bird Strike Accidents, Including US Airways Flight 1549

The 15 January 2009 accident involving US Airways Flight 1549 was one of those rare bird strike events that resulted in the loss of an aircraft. A crash due to a bird strike is a rare event, but over the last several decades there have been several of these accidents that were investigated by authorities in the US and elsewhere. In the 2000 book Understanding Aviation Safety Data, Dr. Todd Curtis of AirSafe.com reviewed seven of these accidents and found that there were very clear patterns among them, including the key roles that flight crews had in the accident sequence, both in preventing fatalities as was the case with the US Airways crash, or contributing to an accident that may have been avoided had the crew performed differently.

After last week's accident, that original analysis was updated to include the US Airways accident. The goal was to provide a better model for how bird stike related accidents occur, and more importantly highlight issues that the aviation industry should address in order to reduce bird strike related risks. This method could be applied more broadly, specifically to risks such as runway incursions, which is a problem area that is of great concern to both the FAA and NTSB.

You are invited to not only review this analysis (links below), but also to send comments, suggestions, or even corrections to AirSafe.com at feedback.airsafe.org. Once the review period has ended, AirSafe.com will make this study permanently available on the site.

Download "Comparison of Eight Serious Bird Strike Accidents"
PDF: http://www.airsafe.com/birds/bird-strike-comparisons.pdf
Word: http://www.airsafe.com/birds/bird-strike-comparisons.doc
OpenDocument: http://www.airsafe.com/birds/bird-strike-comparisons.odt