Good grief - what's the co-pilot doing? :-)
The cockpit transcript is now published so we have an idea of what
was offered and rejected.
He also had to miss a bridge by not much and from that little bit of
film I saw, he managed the perfect tail-dragging angle for ditching
as a opposed to a wheels-up landing.
I tend to think that 'bravery' should be used to describe a situation
where one has a choice.
In this situation it's more a case of quite admirable professionalism
and skill.
Even the passengers behaved very well indeed.
Andrew Fildes
afildes@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
On 07/02/2009, at 9:08 PM, Chris Barker wrote:
> Hi Jim
>
> Not miraculous, but extremely well executed, in my view.
>
> The chap had little time to make a decision, but in the space of a
> couple of minutes he had to:
>
> 1. Lower the nose pretty smartly to avoid stalling the aircraft; he
> would have had it pretty high in a steep climb for noise abatement
> procedures in a city area.
>
> 2. Guess at a good gliding speed, although a good, experienced and
> conscientious pilot would have known the minimum drag speed for that
> weight.
>
> 3. Tell ATC that a large aircraft was over a large and populous city
> with no way of remaining airborne for long (then ignore them for a
> while as they had nothing useful to offer him).
>
> 4. Indicate to the crew and passengers that they had better prepare
> for a hard landing.
>
> 5. Make a plan with very little in the way of resources (runways,
> guidance, wind direction) that are normally available to the cosseted
> airline pilot (:-)).
>
> 6. Tell ATC what that plan was and carry out the emergency shutdown
> drills for the engines -- and and the emergency landing drills.
>
> 7. Find a clear bit of space, probably his easiest decision as the
> river was right in front of him -- once he had the nose down to glide.
>
> 8. Decide on the approach angle, when to flare (no practice is
> available for either gliding or ditching) and order an evacuation.
>
> 9. Finally, to walk down the watery aisle checking that he was the
> last one there.
>
> Wonderful! But so was the prompt and professional reaction of the
> ferry captains.
>
> The whole thing was excellent and I felt proud of all involved.
>
> Chris
>
>
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