THE HUDSON LANDING: A SAFETY HISTORY NEEDS THE FULL FINDINGS
US Airways flight 1549 is part of the real A320 story, but its familiar nickname is not the full account. On 15 January 2009 an A320-214 lost almost all thrust after birds entered both engines and was ditched on the Hudson River. All 155 occupants evacuated; five people were seriously injured. The NTSB attributed the accident to the ingestion of large birds and the resulting thrust loss. That finding is more precise than saying simply that an Airbus survived an engine failure. [186, What Happened; What We Found; DCA09MA026]
The FAA's lessons-learned account discusses crew coordination, ditching damage and limitations in the checklists and training available for a very low-altitude dual-engine failure. An extraordinary outcome can therefore coexist with important recommendations for improvement. For a simulator pilot, the useful historical lesson is to read the investigation before copying a dramatised sequence: actual circumstances, available time and the aircraft's condition matter. [187]