Animation of Hudson ditching

[Rockcliffe]

A very cool story here, with links to the 3D animation of US Airways Flight 1549. It's a pretty awesome simulation of the ditching.

http://www.ottawacitizen.com/news/Mi...910/story.html

[vanzanten]

very nice. how accurate is this vid? turns out the controller wasn't aware of the A320 going for the hudson at all until later..

why weren't they using full flaps to reduce speed?

[gander]

Very well done; thanks for posting.
The brief Wiki account of "Sully" -- his boyhood, education, values and career before his moment of fame -- is very inspirational: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sullenberger

[ytzpilot]

Great video....Didn't realize there was that much flames shooting out of the engines. Or was that to make the animation more dramatic.

[N069NT]

why weren't they using full flaps to reduce speed?

This 737 captain and former chief NTSB investigator sort of explains it on an NPR interview earlier this year about the ditching:

"And then you would bring the airplane down to the water probably with the landing gear retracted for a smooth belly with the best flap setting that will give you the best contact with the water, and then touch down just as slowly as you can. The key would be keeping the airplane under control."

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/s...oryId=99480314

It makes sense: once you go full flaps, especially power off, that's it. The increased drag may slow you down considerably - but - you'll have to greatly increase your descent rate and pitch down attitude to keep airspeed up. With that, you just lost all remaining wiggle room for final maneuverability, let alone disrupt any possibility of last second attitude adjustment for optimal water contact point.