Feb 10, 2009 Update: Watched the wonder segment on 60 Minutes of the stories of Scully, his crew, and the passengers.
*******
I was so looking forward to hear from Capt. Scully to tell the story of the whole thing. All those split seconds decisions and they all were the perfectly right ones in order to save everyone on the plane including himself.
What made Scully’s decision making and quick thinking even more astonishing is that his co-pilot was flying the plane as the birds crashed into the engines.
Scully had to take over as all hell broke loose. Imagine driving a fast car on a highway and switching from an active passenger to driving a crashing car on the spot.
What burns into my mind were what they said to each other as the Scully took control. Clean and simple and direct.
Quote from Bloomberg,
“Sullenberger said “my aircraft” as he took the controls, Higgins said. “Your aircraft,” the first officer said.”
“My aircraft.” — “Your aircraft” as if it is another day in the boring office. :) How cool and how professional.
In a world of wars and financial crisis, we, collectively, own Scully for this ultimate story of unlucky, professionalism, and luck with a happy ending.
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Something I have thought about is the flotation of the aircraft. It would seem to me that by cracking the back door open and letting water in actually helped by lowering the tail and raising the front because the aircraft will rotate around the center of gravity which is at the center of the wings. By weighting the back down it rotated the front up out of the water to give everyone doors to open freely. Another miracle of which this landing has many.
Interesting theory. Water in the back certainly lift up the front, but I wonder if the natural center of gravity of the plane is the middle? I guess what I wander is will the plane float more on a level if the tail exit remained closed?
I don’t have much facts on hand but I suppose with more facts and details, it will be a nice exercise for a creative Physics teacher to inject some real life considerations into a class discussion or assignment.