CNN

When US Airways Flight 1549 ditched in the Hudson River and all of its 150 passengers and five crew members were safely rescued in January, the landing of the airplane by pilot Chesley Sullenberger was quickly proclaimed the "Miracle on the Hudson" and dominated national news for days.

A pilot who virtually grew up in airplane cockpits, writer William Langewiesche set out to analyze what happened in the five-minute flight of US Airways 1549, which lost power in both engines when it collided with a flock of Canada geese. His conclusion after writing a new book "Fly by Wire" - there was no miracle.

"I'm sure Mr. Sullenberger himself wouldn't have used that word," Langewiesche said in an interview with CNN. "There was no miracle. There was extremely skillful flying going on and skillful engineering in the background. You can include the flight attendants and the passengers. ... There was a lot of altruism, kind of a bravery, soberness. They were not hysterical, and there was no stampeding.

"Many good things happened, but they all related to the individual strength of the people involved. That includes [Bernard] Ziegler [the designer of the aircraft], Sullenberger, [co-pilot Jeffrey] Skiles and Patrick Harten, the air traffic controller - he was as good as it gets, offering alternatives, the backing off of alternatives, staying cool."

Keep Reading...

LiveATC

CNN's Mike M. Ahlers reported earlier today the story of the flight from San Diego, California, to Minneapolis, Minnesota, that overshot its destination airport by about 150 miles Wednesday. Federal investigators are now looking into whether the pilots had become distracted, as they claimed, or perhaps fallen asleep.

Air traffic controllers lost radio communication with the Northwest Airlines Airbus A320, carrying 147 passengers and an unknown number of crew, when it was flying at 37,000 feet, according to the National Transportation Safety Board.

Listen in to air traffic control towers from across the country....

An aerial view shows downtown Minneapolis.

By Mike M. Ahlers
CNN

A passenger flight from San Diego, California, to Minneapolis, Minnesota, overshot its destination airport by about 150 miles Wednesday, and federal investigators are looking into whether the pilots had become distracted, as they claimed, or perhaps fallen asleep.

Air traffic controllers lost radio communication with the Northwest Airlines Airbus A320, carrying 147 passengers and an unknown number of crew, when it was flying at 37,000 feet, according to the National Transportation Safety Board. There was no communication with Flight 188 for more than an hour as it approached the airport, the board said.

When air traffic controllers finally made contact with the pilot, his answers were so vague that controllers feared the plane might have been hijacked, according to a source familiar with the incident.

Keep Reading...

The FAA is developing new technology to track air traffic via satellite.

Federal Aviation Administration

– What is NextGen? –

NextGen is an umbrella term for the ongoing, wide-ranging transformation of the United States’ national airspace system (NAS). At its most basic level, NextGen represents an evolution from a ground-based system of air traffic control to a satellite-based system of air traffic management. This evolution is vital to meeting future demand, and avoid to gridlock in the sky and at our nation’s airports.

NextGen will open America’s skies to continued growth and increased safety while reducing aviation’s environmental impact.

These goals will be realized through the development of aviation-specific applications for existing, widely-used technologies such as Global Positioning Satellite (GPS). They will also be realized through the fostering of technological innovation in areas such as weather forecasting, data networking, and digital communications. Hand in hand with state-of-the-art technology will be new airport infrastructure and new procedures, including the shifting of certain decision-making responsibility from the ground to the cockpit.

When fully implemented, NextGen will safely allow more aircraft to fly more closely together on more direct routes, reducing delays, and providing unprecedented benefits for the environment and the economy through reductions in carbon emissions, fuel consumption, and noise.

Read more about NextGen and new innovative initiatives from the FAA to revamp air traffic control.

Crews will resume the search for victims of a midair collision over New York's Hudson River.

Susan Candiotti
CNN

Officials will resume their search Sunday for victims of a midair collision between a plane and a tourist helicopter over the Hudson River in New York.

Nine people were believed killed in the crash, said New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg.

Late Saturday night, investigators located the body of a fourth victim in the wreckage of the sightseeing helicopter. Rescue workers have not yet recovered the body, a source close to the investigation said.

So far, only three bodies have been pulled out.

Read More...

Kassim Bakari said he thought he would never see his wife or daughter again after learning of the crash.

Michael Schulder
CNN Senior Executive Producer

It wasn’t the Hudson River. It wasn’t a soft landing. It wasn’t a happy ending. When the Yemenia Airlines Airbus went down in the rough seas of the Indian Ocean, 152 people perished. Everyone on board. Everyone except a 14-year-old girl named Bahia Bakari. The way her father describes her, Bahia did not fit the profile of a survivor. She could “barely swim” her father told the Associated Press. She was, he said, a fragile, timid girl.

Bahia was on the plane with her mother, flying from their home in Paris, to Yemen, then on to the Comoros Islands off the southeast coast of Africa to visit Bahia’s grandma. Their flight was approaching the Comoros when it disappeared from the radar. With the wind blowing at nearly 40 miles an hour, the plane went down in the choppy seas of the Indian Ocean. Bahia’s father, back in Paris, recounted for the AP what his daughter told him over the phone. “Papa, we saw the plane going down in the water. I was in the water. I could hear people talking, but I couldn’t see anyone. I was in the dark. I couldn’t see a thing. On top of that, daddy, I can’t swim well and I held onto something, but I don’t really know what.”

Keep reading

Some wreckage from Air France Flight 447 has been recovered, including part of the tail.

Kieran Daly
Editor, Air Transport Intelligence

In one way we know a huge amount about the loss of Air France flight 447 - much more than is usual so soon after an accident. But in another, we know nothing at all.

The simple fact is that the blizzard of airworthiness directives, company memos, weather reports, technical specifications and diverse other documents that have surfaced since last week constitute entirely circumstantial evidence.

Aviation history is replete with accidents with causes utterly unrelated to what first seemed the obvious explanation.

For the investigators, the challenge is to keep an open mind while simultaneously pursuing obvious leads before evidence is lost and memories become stale.

But all that said, there are real clues to what might have happened to this Airbus A330.

Two things we know for certain: The aircraft did penetrate a region of severe weather, and the pilots were eventually confronted with a rapid series of system failures.

Keep reading...

Brazilian military personnel on Tuesday carry the remains of one of the passengers of the Air France crash.

Fernando De Noronha
CNN

The first bodies to be recovered from the crash of Air France 447 returned to land Tuesday, as helicopters landed on the Brazilian archipelago of Fernando de Noronha, according to a CNN reporter on the scene.

Two Brazilian helicopters, each able to carry up to eight bodies, took off earlier to rendezvous with the Brazilian Navy ship carrying the recovered bodies.

Meanwhile, four more bodies were recovered Tuesday, according to the Brazilian air force, bringing the total to 28.

Air France 447 crashed in the Atlantic Ocean last week en route from Rio de Janeiro in Brazil to Paris, France, with 228 passengers and crew on board. It was the deadliest plane crash ever for Air France.

Keep reading...