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The FAA has released the audio tapes and transcripts of the radio communications between Flight 1549, the US Airways jet that crash-landed in the Hudson River on Jan. 15, and the various air traffic controllers in the area on the afternoon of the accident.
The tapes are dramatic, providing a moment by moment account of the flights communications from the time it suffered a double bird strike to the time it glided down without engine power onto the chilly surface of the Hudson River just off Manhattans West Side.
At 3:27:32 p.m., a scant 2 minutes and 32 seconds after the flight was cleared for takeoff by the tower at LaGuardia, Captain Chesley B. Sullenberger III alerted air traffic control of trouble.
In a deep, calm voice, Captain Sullenberger said, Ah, this is, uh, Cactus 1539. Hit birds. We lost thrust in both engines. Were turning back towards La Guardia.
His cadence is brisk, in the clipped syntax that is normal for communications between cockpits and controllers. If there was a sign of stress, it was that the captain had fumbled his call sign; Cactus is the correct sign for US Airways, but he was Flight 1549, not 1539 or 1529, as the flight was occasionally called, incorrectly, at various points in the tape.
The controller replied instantly, O.K., yeah, you need to return to La Guardia, turn left, heading of, uh, 220, that is, further to the left. Captain Sullenberger acknowledged, and the controller, in a windowless radar room at the New York Terminal Radar Approach Control in Westbury, L.I., used a land line to reach the control tower.
Tower, stop your departures, he said. We got an emergency returning.
His voice was urgent but not evidently stressed, until he, too, bungled the call sign, calling it 1529. The controller turned his attention back to the airplane at 3:28:05 p.m.
New York Tracon La Guardia Departure: Cactus 15-29, if we can get it to you, do you want to try to land runway 1-3?
AWE1549: Were unable, we may end up in the Hudson.
The controller offered him coordinates from his position to the runway. Unable, Captain Sullenberger responded, in standard pilot phraseology.
The other La Guardia runway was also available, the controller said, but Captain Sullenberger replied, I am not sure if we can make any runway. He asked about anything in New Jersey, maybe Teterboro? He was given a routing to that airport, but then replied simply, We cant do it.
Were going to be in the Hudson, the captain said.
Im sorry, say again, Cactus? the controller said.
But Captain Sullenberger had more serious problems that no controller could help him with; he did not radio back. His last communication was at 3:29:28, a few hundred feet over the Hudson. Soon after, a plane in flight reported that the airliner, an Airbus A320, was down near the Intrepid aircraft carrier, which is moored at 46th Street. All of the 155people on board survived.
As the plane went down, air traffic controllers moved quickly to organize an emergency response an exchange that is captured on another tape released Thursday called the Cab Coordinator Position Audio.
Just after the Airbus cleared the George Washington Bridge approaching its water landing, the La Guardia control tower coordinator reached out to the Port Authority:
3:28:53 p.m. La Guardia control coordinator: O.K., listen, ah, were going to tell you something important. Its Cactus 1549. We see somebody low level in the Hudson river below 400. O.K.? Youre going to need to, um, alert the New York and New Jersey Port Authority police over there.
Less than a minute later, at 3:30 p.m. and 9 seconds, the plane hit the water. The La Guardia control coordinator immediately reached out to Kennedy International Airport air traffic control:
3:30:48 p.m. La Guardia: Get me a Police Department helicopter. Have you got one on your frequency?
J.F.K.: Say again.
La Guardia: Get me a Police Department helicopter if you got one on your frequency right now.
J.F.K.: We dont have one right now. but we will make a call.
La Guardia: You get anybody you send them right into the Lincoln Tunnel. We had a Cactus Airbus go down in the water.
Update 2:51 p.m. For those wondering why US Airways jets would be referred to by the call sign Cactus, it stems from the 2005 merger of US Airways and America West. Cactus was America Wests call (perhaps because the airline is based in Tempe, AZ), and after the merger, it eventually became the call sign of US Airways. That also explains why Flight 1549 is referred to in the transcripts as AWE1549. AWE have long been the call letters of America West.
The official Tracom transcript can be read here:
http://www.scribd.com/doc/1171 9666/Tracon-Transcript
Many thanks also to the many agencies,ATC's,NFPD,NYFD and especially the Port Authority watercraft-captains.
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