Investigation begins in plane's NYC splash landing

NEW YORK — Investigators brought in a giant crane, divers and a barge Friday to help pull a US Airways jetliner from the Hudson River, as many of the 155 people aboard recounted survivor stories and hailed the pilot as a hero who delivered them from certain death.

Pilot Chesley B. "Sully" Sullenberger III was in good spirits and showing no outward signs of stress from the ordeal, a pilots union official said. His wife on Friday said he was "a pilot's pilot" and called talk of him being a national hero "a little weird."

But passengers like Billy Campbell were effusive in their praise for the way Sullenberger handled things. Campbell said he approached the pilot while they were standing on a rescue raft in the frigid cold.

"I leaned over and grabbed his arm, and I said I just want to thank you on behalf of all of us," Campbell told NBC's "Today" show. "He just said, 'You're welcome.'"

The parents of a 3-year-old girl and a 9-month-old boy recounted how they and a fellow passenger held the children tight while preparing to crash land.

"I held Sophia and we did the best we could to brace ourselves up," Martin Sosa, the father, told NBC's "Today."

"And the gentleman beside me said, "Would you like me to brace your son?" said his wife, Tess Sosa. "And I said okay, because he mentioned that he had been on scary flights before."

"And he did, he braced my son. There was an impact. My son was crying. That was such a good sign to me."

Mark P. Hood, of Charlotte, N.C., said said he felt a jolt ripple through the jet as though a baseball bat hit the engine close to the George Washington Bridge.

"I think everyone was holding their breath, making their peace, saying their prayers," Hood said Friday.

"When we hit the water, as soon as we hit I realized we'd survived. I grabbed (the passenger sitting next to him) and said, 'We made it. We made it."'

National Transportation Safety Board investigators will now focus on recovering the black box from the plane and interviewing the crew about the accident — apparently caused by birds that slammed into the plane's two engines.

The Airbus A320, built in 1999, was tethered to a pier on the tip of Lower Manhattan on Friday morning — about four miles from where it touched down. Only a gray wing tip could be seen jutting out of the water near a Lower Manhattan sea wall.

Crews of NYPD divers went underwater Friday to inspect the belly of the plane to make sure it was stable enough to lift and secure a bed of ropes underneath it. Police and emergency crews also pulled about 15 pieces of carry-on luggage, the door of the plane, sheared pieces of metal and flotation devices from the water.

Recent comments