Miracle Landing on the Hudson (Full Episode) | SPECIAL | National Geographic

VALLIE COLLINS: As human beings, we all know we're going to die but you never think it's going to be today. (Explosion sound) We always assume we've got a tomorrow, we've got a next month, we've got a next year and all of a sudden, that was not a true assumption anymore. (Screams) JEFF SKILES: Sully gives the command that, this is the captain, brace for impact! DOREEN WELSH: I don't think many people hear those words and are here to talk about it afterwards. JIM WHITAKER: And I said, may I hold your baby? (Panic-Screams) BRAD WENTZELL: I kept screaming, Go! Don't stop moving. You got to get off this plane. You say to yourself, this is really happening. I'm about to die. PAM SEAGLE: I'm standing on the bank of a river. There's a gentleman standing next to me, I don't know who this gentleman is and we're watching a plane take off. There's smoke coming out of the engines. I ask, what's happening? The man next to me says, I don't know. I see this plane disappear behind the horizon and then suddenly a cloud of smoke comes up. It frightened me, it woke me up. I was really uneasy. I kept trying to back to sleep and couldn't it was disturbing. That day I was scheduled for an afternoon flight but I kept thinking about that dream. I kept thinking, I shouldn't be doing this, shouldn't be doing it. Got through Security. Got to the gate agent. The gate agent was reaching out for my boarding pass. I couldn't do it. I'm sorry I can't do this. That dream was frightening me too badly. I turned around and walked away. Got back in my car and drove home. That night I was watching television. I was absolutely convinced that I was going to turn on the news and see something had happened. And of course it didn't. So I dismissed it as myself just being silly. And on January the 15th, I headed out the door. And was on my way to La Guardia. EILEEN SHLEFFAR: I travel to New York every single month and I am always on the 5 o'clock flight. What's the run on this? FEMALE SUPPLIER: We can do ten thousand, EILEEN SHLEFFAR: OK? FEMALE SUPPLIER: Yeah. EILEEN SHLEFFAR: But that day I decided to take an earlier flight However, I completely forgot that I had booked on the 2.45 and one of my associates said to me. FEMALE-EILEEN: Aren't you gonna be late, don't you have to leave for the airport? EILEEN SHLEFFAR: I just grabbed my bags. And I jumped in the cab and I said, I need to be at the airport at LaGuardia in 20 minutes. You gotta get me there. Just don't kill us! I was very flustered in the cab because I don't like to fly and I think whenever you change your travel plans or something happens impulsively, it makes you a little nervous. I had second thoughts about it. I thought; I really shouldn't do this. I couldn't decide. I couldn't decide what to do. BARRY LEONARD: January of 2009 was one of the worst economic situations in the US. Everybody was having very difficult times and honestly very, very concerned about where our country was gonna go. I was worried about getting home because of the weather. I was extremely concerned that the flights were gonna be delayed or cancelled and there's nothing worse than when you're flying all the time to be delayed. PAM SEAGLE: Anyone who travels back and forth on that flight or on those routes between Charlotte and New York knew that it was always Gate 15, every time, no exceptions. This day on January 15th it was different and we had been moved across to a different gate. TANNOY: US Airways Flight 1549 has been moved to Gate 21. PAM SEAGLE: The gate change made me feel a little uneasy, it was just different; it was out of my routine, it was out of normal. BARRY LEONARD: I just didn't understand why they had changed the gate. I had never had that done up to that time that I could remember. I was concerned because I thought maybe there was something wrong with one of the planes. So yeah, that causes a little tension when things like that happen. EILEEN SHLEFFAR: Oops, Sorry! MARTIN SOSA: That's OK. TESS SOSA: I was concerned about Martin checking in at curbside, because I wasn't sure exactly how they were going to assign our seats and it was very important that we all be seated together for the flight to Charlotte. My mom was undergoing surgery the following morning and it was a very anxious time for me so then my husband decided that he would come along as well. MARTIN SOSA: My wife had always intended to leave from Newark but stubborn as I may be I said, well, I had some commitments I had to take care of and I think it's best if we leave from La Guardia and those are the famous last words. EILEEN SHLEFFAR: When I got to the airport I was feeling hurried and stressed and um, you know everything was just a little bit off. Oops, Sorry! EILEEN SHLEFFAR: So I called my husband. I knew that he would um calm me down. I knew that he would tell me that it was going to be ok. I said. I wasn't booked on the 5 o'clock so you need to pick me up earlier. Mmhmm I could just see him shaking his head saying. Ah ha. He said, you know, keep me posted and I hung up. JEFF SKILES: It's still cold out there! I was actually flying the leg back down to Charlotte to end the trip. And all the clouds and the snow that had delayed us had moved off to the east so, so New York City was actually bright sunshine. I'd never actually flown with Sully before. At the time, he'd worked at US Airways for 30 years, I worked there for 24, and I don't really recall even seeing Sully. Uh, you could see that he was definitely a professional. He had an air about him. PAM SEAGLE: I remember getting on the plane and there was a gentleman and I thought I recognized him at first. As he looked up I realized, oh, I don't know this gentleman. And there was a moment where I was just a little bit embarrassed and I think he recognized that and he kinda gave me a little salute. And as he gave me this salute I saw this incredibly beautiful gold cufflink. I remember how the light hit it. It's just, it's so clear. EILEEN SHLEFFAR: Row 13. I was sitting in Row 13 and I was thinking about my daughter's birthday party. I wanted it to be really special for her. I saw the people with two kids get on the flight and since I was thinking about my daughter it was, you know it really stuck with me. MARTIN SOSA: It wasn't until we did board the plane that we realized that we had different seating assignments. Tess had Damien as a lap child, uh in 19E and uh my, I was at 20, 26 uh, 23B and uh Sophia was at 23E directly to my lower right, uh, across the aisle. TESS SOSA: Did you ask for us to be seated together? I really felt that it was my right, as a mother, to be seated with her child and husband and so I was persistent about having this rearranged. Excuse me, Miss, we need to be reseated. My daughter is sitting on her own. DOREEN WELSH: Just sit down and I'll reseat you once we are up in the air. TESS SOSA: She is 4 years old! PASSENGER: She can switch with me. TESS SOSA: Thank you so much. MARTIN SOSA: Thank you. TESS SOSA: That was a wonderful thing to do, again, crucial to her survival that day. DOREEN WELSH: The mother of the baby seemed a little stressed. I just had to tell her to Please sit down; we're getting ready to go. One, she had to strap in and everything else, but that's normal because these things happen all the time. Like I said, this was only one family on board, so it was easy. TESS SOSA: At that point I really started to feel uneasy. JIM WHITAKER: Hi. TESS SOSA: It felt like we were being rushed into the flight and I didn't feel good about it. DOREEN-TANNOY: Once again we apologize for the delay. We wish you a very pleasant flight. MARTIN SOSA: Take off seemed very agitated and hasty. Normally there's an introduction from the pilot, which I don't recall having heard. And there's also a, a life safety demonstration. I don't recall that ever happening. TESS SOSA: It was a maddening moment when we were just taxiing off and I just didn't feel prepared. I didn't feel like there was a sense of control, um I felt coerced into sitting where I was sitting and my, my feeling was, well maybe I don't need to be on this flight, maybe I should just get off the flight now. I mean, we're not seated together, I, I don't feel like I'm being accommodated and there's no good vibe here. In fact there was a point where I stood up and I just wanted to get off the plane. Excuse me, I need to get off this plane. Excuse me? The attendant said, Sit down, DOREEN: Miss, sit down now! TESS SOSA: And, so I sat down and the gentleman to my right was, um, very kind and sort of put my mind at ease. JIM WHITAKER : Can I help you in any way? I'm a father of five myself. TESS SOSA: He had an American flag on his lapel. Very closely shaved haircut and just seemed very in control. I'm fine now, thank you for asking. MARTIN SOSA: I remember Sophia asking me. SOPHIA SOSA: Daddy are we flying yet? MARTIN SOSA: And I said. No we're not flying yet; you see, we're still on land, we're, we're uh we're still on the runway. And I told her, I said, when we're just about ready to fly, you're gonna know it because we're going to be going really fast. 13-49, spot 28 taxi please. AIR TRAFFIC CONTROL: Cactus 1549 taxi foxtrot bravo hotel echo, just got to hold you for about 3 minutes, for your er, in trail to Charlotte. PATRICK HARTEN: That day I was scheduled to work a 3 to 11 shift, See that? Got the briefing, got the configurations, er frequencies that we're using for the day and I just took over from there. It snowed in the morning, which caused delays. Traffic was backed up. Other than being a little slow it was a pretty routine day. Cactus 1549, line up runway 4. Cactus 1549, Runway 4 for take-off. SULLY: Cleared for take-off Cactus 1549. JEFF SKILES: Sully lined it up with the center line stripes and he says, SULLY: Your aircraft. JEFF SKILES: My Aircraft. We started to accelerate down the runway. Sully makes our standard call outs, SULLY: Eighty V1, rotate. JEFF SKILES: I pull back and we leave the runway behind. EILEEN SHLEFFAR: I've read information about, when plane crashes occur and they're usually in the first 90 seconds and so I've made it a habit to count that off and then I feel a little safer. I start my count, One 1,000, two 1,000. Three 1,000, four 1,000, five 1,000, I remember, stopping and looking around and thinking, I've lost my count, what am I on? It's why am I not focusing? and I um, I got to, 1 thousand 80, 1 thousand 81, 1 thousand 82, 1 thousand 83. And thought, this is good. We're almost there. And [CLAP] boom. (SCREAMS) And the first thing I thought of really was 9-11. I was terrified and I froze. PAM SEAGLE: At first there's this, we hit something, and then you, well wait, no we can't hit something, I'm on a plane, I'm in the air, there's nothing here to hit? BARRY LEONARD: The plane just shook and, and shuddered. I didn't really understand what it was at all. I just couldn't fathom what it could be with us being 3000 or so feet up in the air. FLIGHT ATTENDANT: It's fine. BARRY LEONARD: Directly after that there was a smell. And to me that smell was more a smell of maybe an electrical fire. SOPHIA SOSA: (Screams) MARTIN SOSA: Sophia started crying, and and she was asking me, Daddy, what's that smell? Make it go away. SOPHIA SOSA: Make it go away! MARTIN SOSA: As a four year old, she didn't understand what was happening and nor, nor did I for that matter, but I was trying to calm her down and telling her that, it was going to be OK, the smell was going away. TESS SOSA: I got up and turned around 'cause I could hear Sofia in the background and I saw the attendant beating out a fire. And there was a mist in the air, I could hear her going ah! making noises as she was beating it out because it took a good amount of strength for her to do so. I wasn't gonna sit back down until I knew that that fire was out. MARTIN SOSA: Somebody yelled fire, fire! Fire! I saw one of the flight attendants running to the back with a fire extinguisher. And I'm like why is she going to the back with a fire extinguisher? DOREEN WELSH: Passengers remember exactly what they want to remember. There was never a fire on the plane, ever. I had assumed that an engine blew. My first reaction was annoyed because I knew that we would probably have to turn around, go back to La Guardia and have mechanics check this out and we were going to be late. But shortly after that, this burning odor came to the back of the aircraft. DOREEN WELSH: I assumed it might have been an electrical fire, so the first thing I checked out was my galley in the back. I tried to call the flight attendants in the front on the interphone. The interphone did not work, this had never happened. Miss, its fine, stay in your seat. As I walked through the cabin, I had my hands on the overhead racks, but what I was feeling for was heat and fire. Miss, you need to sit down. BARRY LEONARD: My seat mate actually I remember him looking out the window. And he looked at me and he said, Sir I think the engine is gonna fall off. It actually sounded like tennis shoes um going around in a drier. You know bump, bump bump. Bump, bump, bump. I actually undid my seatbelt, went over to the window, and I said, I have some good news and some bad news, the good news is the engine isn't gonna fall off. The bad news, it's not running. BRAD WENTZELL: I was a pretty well seasoned traveller. I had spent a lot of time in the air. I had never heard anything like that before. I had a woman sitting beside of me and she said, SHAE CHILDERS: What's going on? BRAD WENTZELL: Is everything going to be OK? I looked out my left window and I, I saw sparks flying off the engine. Then it stopped suddenly. And it got really quiet. You could have heard a pin drop. It was all in slow motion. You're saying to yourself, oh no, this is really happening. And I looked to her, I said, I think you should pray. DOREEN WELSH: Normally the pilots always come over the PA and say something. The silence, both from the plane being quiet, and the silence from the cockpit was almost more than I could take at this point. This was starting to truly alarm me. Stay in your seats! I'm thinking, we're over Manhattan. We couldn't be in a worse position ever. JEFF SKILES: At the moment that we lost power on the airplane, how I felt was confusion. I didn't know what the future was going to hold but I knew it was something entirely different than anything I'd ever experienced before. At 3,000 feet in the air I look out and slightly to our right and above us I see a line of birds. Obviously I was shocked they were so close too close to ever possibly maneuver around. Then I saw them descend in our windshield and I thought that we were going to fly over the top of them. And I remember, I had this great sense of relief that, that came over me when I saw that. But then I started to hear the boom, boom, boom of them hitting, hitting the airframe and the wings. Both engines immediately lose thrust. You could just feel it kind of sag in the air and the speed tape was just was decelerating. That was when the real shock kind of hit suddenly my head was swelling and I was looking at the world through a fog. SULLY: Engine start selectors. JEFF SKILES: Sully was galvanized into action. SULLY: On, off. JEFF SKILES: He turned on our auxiliary power unit. SULLY: APU. JEFF SKILES: and then took over flying the airplane at that point by saying... SULLY: ...My aircraft. JEFF SKILES: Your aircraft. He pushed the nose over hard to establish a glide. The only way we can do that is by trading altitude for air speed. PAM SEAGLE: We hit this point where we stopped our forward momentum, we almost became weightless and it was at that point when I realized there was no sound, that there was no engine roar. There was no thrust, there was no power coming. It was incredibly frightening and your heart is just beating out of your chest. The worst part was just absolute loss of control. You absolutely cede all control to the pilot and there's absolutely nothing you can do. There was nothing that I could change about what was going to happen, you have to sit there and accept it. EILEEN SHLEFFAR: I just waited for an announcement, I waited to hear what it was, I waited for the recovery. Then the nose tilted down and I thought we were just gonna head, straight into the ground. I thought, I have to call my husband, I have to call David. We're probably going to die. I pulled out my phone and I thought, I'll never get through. By the time I turn my phone on we'll be down, we'll be, we'll crash. Come on, come on, come on. And I felt, er, um, despair. Total despair that, um, you know, that that was the end. But then my phone came on! And I thought ok, this is good. He said; Hey what's up are you going to be late? And, I didn't really know what to tell him. DAVID SHLEFFAR: I was at the car wash and she seemed concerned and said there was a problem with the plane. I'm sure everything is fine. Eileen is a little bit of a nervous flyer and I was joking around with her, not taking it seriously, and said, oh I'm sure that everything's fine with the plane. She said No you don't understand. EILEEN SHLEFFAR: I said: we're going to crash. We took off and we hit something and there's fire. DAVID SHLEFFAR: Wait hold on. Did you say fire? At that point I knew that it wasn't just nervous flying. All of a sudden you're having an emergency situation that you basically have no control over er trying to talk with her and keep her calm and to see exactly what the facts really are. Eileen can you hear me? Eileen? But then the call dropped. EILEEN SHLEFFAR: Oh God. I have never felt a sense of despair like I felt when that call dropped. BARRY LEONARD: The plane banked left and then headed down like being on a rollercoaster. I just remember my seat mate grabbing my arm and saying, We're gonna die aren't we? And to this day I still don't know if I said anything to him. The day before my wife and I were waiting for results for breast cancer. That was extremely stressful, just waiting to get those results back. I actually prayed and just said, God if you're gonna take anybody please take me. And I got the phone call, (Phone rings) Hi. And my wife was fine thank God. I love you. Bye. (Crying) I made this deal with God to take me instead of her, so if that was what was happening. I was fine with that. JEFF SKILES: Engine start selectors, fuel control switches. I was responsible for trying to restart the engines. Off run; Run. And you could hear the clicking of the igniters, you know, over our radio headsets because it was so quiet. APU selector. After a while, I realised that they were never going to run again. Engine start selectors. They were completely destroyed. APU selectors. I knew that we were going to be coming down some place and all we're looking at is, is er roads, houses, skyscrapers, this is New York City. There's, there's no open land where we could set this airliner down. PATRICK HARTEN: Cactus fifteen forty nine New York departure radar contact, climb and maintain one five thousand. When I reached out to cactus 1549 to turn them westbound. Cactus 1549 turn left on two seven zero. I kinda cut off his transmission. It was only after I un-keyed the mike that I heard the rest of his transmission. SULLY: This is Cactus 1539. Hit Birds, we've lost thrust in both engines. PATRICK HARTEN: Immediately I could feel my heart rate increase and my heart it felt like it was almost like pounding outta my chest. I have never heard of any plane, especially in the New York area, losing thrust in both their engines at that phase of flight. I mean he was low. He only, he was about 3000 feet when he hit the birds, with not many options. SULLY: We are turning back towards LaGuardia, PARTICK HARTEN: When he told me returning back to LaGuardia, the was the first thing I did was clear the runways so he has a clear shot to land at the airport. Stop all departures, got an emergency returning. Bird strike, he lost the TOWER: Cactus 1529, which engines? JEFF SKILES: Sully was talking with the air traffic controller about LaGuardia. It seem like to me it would be too far away, and that we were too low to possibly stretch our glide that far. PATRICK HARTEN: Hi Cactus 1549, there's going to be less traffic to Runway 31. SULLY: Unable. PATRICK HARTEN: OK, what do you need to land? JEFF SKILES: Our air traffic controller pointed out another airport to us, Teterboro, which was over in New Jersey. PARTICK HARTEN: OK, off to your right side is Teterboro Airport. Do you want to try to go to Teterboro? JEFF SKILES: I was actually concerned when I didn't hear Sully respond right away and I was about to say, you don't think we can make that? When he said, SULLY: We can't do it. We're gonna be in the Hudson. PATRICK HARTEN: I didn't wanna believe it. In my mind a crash landing in the Hudson River airbus 320 was most certainly a death sentence for him and probably everyone on board. Um I thought maybe that they'd be counting the survivors in single digits, I had no idea. It just seemed eerily quiet er you know. I think it's probably people assessing is that real. Is that really happening? JEFF SKILES: We were getting a large number of warning devices, audio signals. We're getting an audible callout over our speakers of traffic, traffic. We're getting a too low gear, a too low flap callout. RECORDER VOICE: Caution, terrain JEFF SKILES: We have an alert bell which is sounding continuously (Alert bell rings). Through all this noise Sully had the presence of mind to give the command that; This is, this is the captain, brace for impact. SULLY: This is the Captain, brace for impact. MARTIN SOSA: The only words I heard from the pilot were you know, brace for impact and that's when I realized, wow, we're gonna, we're really going to go down and you have no idea what that means. If we're gonna, you know, line, land gracefully or if we're gonna you know, smash up and roll over into a million pieces. All I kept saying to myself was (BLEEP), (BLEEP), (BLEEP), I just can't believe this is happening to me! That one word evokes what I was feeling because you were stuck in that plane and there was no way out of it, until you know, we, we hit ground, one way or the other. TESS SOSA: I was angry at myself for being on that plane and, and, and having had sort of these warnings. From the onset I sensed this force of good, bad, good, bad. I, I can't explain it. To be on a plane where you in good faith um put yourself and then your family on, to then, you know, realize that this is the wrong place at the wrong time and your children are with you because of you. And yes it was, it was an overwhelming sense of failure as a mother absolutely. You know that's just the last thing you want to do as a mom is take your children to their death. MARTIN SOSA: I turned to Sophia, and I tightened up her seatbelt as hard as I could. And I had laid over on top of her, to you know, protect her from the impact. I mean, that's, that's all the uh, instinctually all you can do. MARTIN SOSA: Tess did turn around, a ghastly, terrified look on her face. TESS SOSA: I lied, I told her that, everything is going to be OK, Just listen to Daddy. I think that was the hardest thing to do. It felt so futile, you know, but it was so important that I reach out to her. Then it was just a matter of waiting for that point of impact JIM WHITAKER: Excuse me Miss? TESS SOSA: My seatmate asked me if he could brace my son and I said, yes. And then I said something like, Are you sure about this? Because it seemed odd to me that he would be so heroic. JIM WHITAKER: Absolutely sure. TESS SOSA: My thought was well if there's any chance of him surviving it would be better in a stronger man's arms. And I didn't wanna be screaming at the end holding Damien. JIM WHITAKER: Come on there little fella. TESS SOSA: I wanted him to be in a safe place. I had to let him go and hope that he maybe is saved. And then I had to let, let go of everything... ...you know? JIM WHITAKER: It will be fine. We're in safe hands. I think the words coming out of my mouth were completely different than the thoughts in my head. I was pathologically lying the whole time. We were absolutely gonna crash. There was no doubt in my mind. I was not even supposed to be on the plane that day. I was in New York at the time working on the new football stadium for the Giants and the Jets. My business meeting finished early. So I rushed to LaGuardia as fast as I could, and went to the counter and said hey, Can I get on this flight? Perhaps it was fate. I do not know but I got the last available seat on the plane. BABY SOSA: (Crying) JIM WHITAKER: My seatmate was getting increasingly agitated dealing with the child er sitting on her lap, er travelling separated from her family. I tried to make just small talk so that both of us would have a more pleasant afternoon and maybe the baby would calm down. Can I help you in any way? TESS SOSA: I'm fine. Thank you for asking. JIM WHITAKER: Things do begin to calm down because she's now nursing the baby so the anxiety level for everyone involved has gone down significantly. All of a sudden (loud clashing sound) there's this incredible shearing screeching loud sound. And I looked to the right and I can see some type of combination of flame and smoke. (General noise from agitated, panicking passengers) Screaming, yelling, crying and praying. Some people saying nothing. TESS SOSA: What's happening? My seatmate and I now have a much different kind of conversation; it was er intimate, it was looking at one another eye to eye. JIM WHITAKER: It's really nothing to worry about. I was trying to be reassuring and I was trying to say the things that I hoped would be meaningful and helpful at the time. I don't believe I believed them at all in my heart. There's often some quite severe turbulence so, there's nothing to worry about. Then there is a command of brace for impact. My seatmate was calling back to her family. TESS SOSA: Everything is going to be OK, just listen to Daddy, JIM WHITAKER: That was a, that was a harrowing experience. And I said, May I hold your baby? It was an incredible moment, because I don't know that she knew what to say and I don't even know if I really knew what I was going to do. But er without saying anything she let me have her son. Come on little fella, that's a god boy. You are a good boy. I don't even know if I can adequately describe what it's like to think, in the next moment you're going to be dead. Was I worried? No, was I gonna miss my family and worry about how they were gonna go on when I was gone? Sure. But um I wasn't er scared that this was the worst thing that ever happened to me. There are worse things to have happen to you, than for this life to end. DOREEN WELSH: Hearing those words as a crew member, it only means one thing. We were crashing and I knew it. The terror was like terror on steroids, something that I didn't even know existed in life. That kind of fear. I didn't know could be real. I just thought I was dead. I don't think many people hear those words and are here to talk about it afterwards, so it was like somebody politely telling you that you're gonna die very soon. It was hor, it was a horrible, horrible feeling and very, very frightening. I'm supposed to be yelling out my commands to tell the people to brace. TESS SOSA: Everything is going to be OK, DOREEN WELSH: I didn't start doing that initially because I didn't want to. I wanted to be left alone with my own thoughts and my own prayers and my own everything, but I heard this voice yelling out those commands and it was me. Brace, brace, heads down, stay down. down, stay down, brace... I watched everyone holding someone else's hand. I felt that I was just going to die back there all by myself without having any human contact. Brace, brace, heads down... And I, at that point accepted that that was where I was going to die. I accepted it, I said my prayers, I asked God to take care of my son and that was it, I was overcome with unbelievable sadness that I can't, I never wanna feel again. EILEEN SHLEFFAR: The calls dropped two times, the third time the Captain said, Brace for impact. And I said, oh my God, we are gonna crash! And then I said my goodbyes. I said, Honey, I love you. Tell Samantha that I love her to pieces. It was kind of a term we always used, And I will always be there with her. But most of all, I thought, It's not right. This can't happen. This can't happen. My daughter needs me. I'm planning her party. We, I can't be gone. Um, this just can't happen. DAVID SHLEFFAR: The finality of her saying that and then me telling her that I loved her and her asking me to make sure everybody got taken care of that er was a pretty good shock. EILEEN SHLEFFAR: Take care of mom. DAVID SHLEFFAR: You know the person you love more than anything in the world, is this could be it. I didn't know, how do I come home and explain it to my 16 year old daughter? DOREEN WELSH: Brace brace, heads down, stay down. EILEEN SHLEFFAR: And then I was curious. I could feel the pressure on my head pushing into my neck, and I thought, I wonder how I'll die? I wonder if I'm gonna get ripped apart? EILEEN SHLEFFAR: I wonder if there's going to be an explosion. I wonder if I'm gonna break my neck? And, I wonder if it's gonna hurt? TOWER: He's just about a mile and a half north of the Lincoln Tunnel. Last sighted below 900 feet. We still got a target on him but he looks like he's low level. Two ten [unintelligible], is he still flying? Still flying. There may be an incident here. PATRICK HARTEN: We were watching the airplane get lower and lower over the Hudson River. And that's when I had to say um the words that no controller ever wants to have to say and that's, radar contact lost. And that's the last thing you say before a crash. Cactus 1549, radar contact lost. TOWER: Yeah two Tango Alpha he's at 900 feet abeam the North Hudson. He looks like he's descending into the Hudson River. PATRICK HARTEN: It was a combination of disbelief and just feeling sick to your stomach about it. I thought I was part of the worst aviation incident to happen in, in recent times. TOWER: 4718, I think he said he was going in the Hudson. PATRICK HARTEN: At that moment the radar reacquired. I thought maybe he regained thrust in one of the engines both partial thrust er he'd be able to climb back out and and make some runway somewhere. TOWER: Alpha, I have him in sight, yeah, he's in the water, yeah he's abeam the U.S. Intrepid. PATRICK HARTEN: But it only happened for one sweep, which is six seconds. (Radar bleeps) And then it was gone again and this time for good. SHAE CHILDERS: (Crying) BRAD WENTZELL: I looked out my window and I saw the George Washington Bridge. We barely clear the bridge. And then and then the plane started to pick up momentum and we're going down faster and faster and faster and faster. I knew there were no miracles and my time had come. I started thinking about my daughter. Every dad knows the smell of their child and it's a combination of um bath you know, pee-pee diapers, baby powder a little mischief, whatever it is. I could physically smell her. Um... And I knew it was gonna be the er you know, the last time I did. PAM SEAGLE: We're now lower than the high rises of Manhattan and it was at that point I realise we're going into the water. I thought, it's going to break apart, it's going to be horrific, but I'm gonna survive. DOREEN WELSH: Brace, brace. PAM SEAGLE: I started doing the preparation for how am I going to get out. Where am I going? Which door am I going out of? There could be fire. PAM SEAGLE: There will be metal everywhere. Had it all figured out because I envisioned that I was going to be doing this underwater and in the dark? PAM SEAGLE: Grabbed the chair in front of me put my head down as low as I could and just hung on. JEFF SKILES: Right before we touched down in the water, Sully asked me, got any other, SULLY: Ideas? JEFF SKILES: And I said, actually, not DOREEN WELSH: The impact was extremely, extremely violent. (Explosive noises) It was just a vibrating violence. Everything seemed to get dark at that point. Everything just was silent. The masks were swaying and everything was just in a slow motion move. And I thought Maybe this is what it feels like to be dead? I didn't know. In the middle of that slow motion warped thing the captain opened the cockpit door and said, evacuate, evacuate! Well my entire body got full of hope. There wasn't a doubt in my mind that we weren't at the end of the runway in LaGuardia and that all I had to do was open those two doors and everything was going to be fine. But when I got in to that porthole and saw only water. Every ounce of hope drained out of me. JIM WHITAKER: There's this stunned silence. I'm thinking, oh great, we've just survived a plane crash, we've landed on the river, the plane didn't come apart and now we're all gonna drown. I remember looking out the window and seeing the water fast approaching. I put up a knee on the seat in front of me. And I held him as close to me as I could. She leaned forward and there we went into the river! The impact was just tremendous. And I'm thinking, Oh God if there's any moment, give me strength now not to let go of this baby. (General impact screams) And then, nothing. But a millisecond later when one feels that cold river water coming up around your ankles. That is when pandemonium broke out. (General panic screams) EILEEN SHLEFFAR: Everyone started screaming, Water! Water! Water! There's water! And I didn't know what they meant. I couldn't relate I couldn't imagine. Water? Water where? Everyone in the back of the plane was going crazy. MARTIN SOSA: A lot of the seals on the windows had given in. So that water was rushing in, at a very rapid rate from not only the underside of the, of the cabin, but also from the windows. I finally unfastened my seatbelt and I grabbed Sophia. MARTIN SOSA: She was, you know, crying and she didn't know what was going on. And I was horrified myself. The feeling of being trapped of the claustrophobia was just terrifying. BRAD WENTZELL: Everybody's panicking. They weren't thinking clearly. And I felt there was a need for somebody to say, you know, instruct the crowd. When I was younger, I, I was diagnosed with ADD which is Attention Deficit Disorder. This particular time it was a blessing. I was able to focus and be very task oriented. I remember grabbing this lady next to me and going. Come on, get up! Move! Come on, get up. Move. Move. Keep going forwards People are starting to grab things in the overhead. And I remember yelling, Get out of the overhead! One gentleman kept reaching up and finally I said to him, somebody's gonna drown for whatever you're reaching for, Move! Come on! So I kept screaming, go! Go! Don't stop moving. PAM SEAGLE: Hey we need to move! The woman next to me wasn't moving. Hey! We need to move, now! So I actually got up on my seat and climbed over her because I couldn't be responsible for trying to get her up and out of her seat. I didn't care at what cost. Move! (Shouts) I was getting out that door, I just wanted off of that (General panic and shouts) I smell the jet fuel, I know the smell of jet fuel, this thing is going to burn. I saw the Manhattan skyline and I thought, I'm gonna swim to that. I'm getting away from this plane. JIM WHITAKER: I still had the baby in my arms and he seems to be perfectly fine. BRAD WENTZELL: Move! Move! JIM WHITAKER: Tess sits up forward and I hand the baby back to her (Baby crying) and I say, we gotta go. She begins to go over the seats with the baby in her arms, which again was just an incredibly courageous thing to do. TESS SOSA: I wanted to meet Sofia and Martin at the back of the plane. Five feet felt like 50 feet, you know? It, he seemed so far away. Martin. Martin? I saw him, in shock, trying to manage her. She was screaming the water was coming in. MARTIN SOSA: I don't even remember seeing Tess, I mean she said I looked right at her, but I I don't remember seeing her, I was uh, you know, so far removed from, from what was happening that, I just, I was on automatic uh pilot, if you will. TESS SOSA: Martin. Martin? At that point the water was getting deeper and also the aisle was filling up with people, so I had to think about making my way to the exit with Damian. SOPHIA SOSA: Mommy! Mommy! TESS SOSA: I knew that's what I had to do. It was upsetting because I felt we had this great chance to survive. But there was too much chaos. My best option was to crawl over the seats with Damien. I need to get through There was no way I could have gone into the aisle because there was lot of pushing going on. The chances of us being trampled were probably pretty big. (General commotion and shouts) I got to a point where I couldn't crawl anymore seats. Everyone was passing me and I felt invisible for a little while. It was, um, sort of a survival of the fittest. BRAD WENTZELL: I look to my right, there's people climbing over the seats, I look to my left and there's people climbing over the seats. I heard a woman scream. TESS SOSA: (Screams) BRAD WENTZELL: I see a woman holding a baby to her chest and she's absolutely terrified. I've never seen a look like that in my life. Terror. BRAD WENTZELL: There was a selfish side of me that said, get off the plane, that's life. We're inching forwards, step by step and I turned around again and I saw her screaming. said to myself, man, if you don't go back and help her, you'll never sleep another day in your life. Move. Get out of the way! I went back, knocking people out of my way. Get out of the way! Come on move! People were blocking me off. I was extremely irritated by that. Move. I just remember picking them up and saying, come on, you're coming with me. I got you! I got you! I just started waddling my way down the aisle the best I could. Move. Move. At that point she passed out in my arms. Miss. Miss! EILEEN SHLEFFAR: My adrenaline was going 100 miles an hour. I mean it was surging because I was afraid. I was terrified. I just knew we were in imminent danger. It felt really dangerous. (General screams and shouts) And my phone rang. It was David. He said Are you down? and I said we were in the water. DAVID SHLEFFAR: Even though they were in the water I still figured the engines were hot enough to ignite jet fuel. So my main concern was to get her off the plane. Listen to me. You have got to get off that plane. get off that plane! You could hear there was a lot of commotion and you know hysterical things going on. EILEEN SHLEFFAR: And I looked around and I said, Oh my gosh! We have to get the kids off. And he said, Can you see them? And I said, no. I can't. DAVID SHLEFFAR: I said there's people there that will help those people, the main concern is for you so that got me moving. There were already people crowding through the door. So I just sort of got pushed along, like a herd. When I stepped out of the door, it was just chaos. It was freezing cold. The plane was sinking. The jet fuel reeked and we'd had a fire. I wanted to be as far away as I could get. And I felt this movement behind me. (Eileen falls in to the water) DAVID SHLEFFAR: And then her phone went dead. Damn it! EILEEN SHLEFFAR: It was like slipping into mud. It was brisk and cold and heavy. I looked around to see, oh my God, what do I do? Do I get back on the wing? I saw someone who looked like they were attempting to swim off to shore and I saw the raft. I tried to grab onto the side, and I kept slipping back and slipping back and slipping back. Finally I just hurled myself over the top. A friend that I recognized from work started screaming that she was cold and her hands couldn't hold on any more. So I leaned over and I grabbed a hold of her, I grabbed for her clothing and her hair, and we got her up into the raft. The girl behind me was flailing, I mean arms and legs going and screaming. WOMAN: I need my passport, I need my passport! EILEEN SHLEFFAR: And I slipped out of the raft and went back into the water. (General shouting) Even though my adrenaline was going full steam, the water was dangerously cold and I couldn't feel my limbs so well anymore. Something had to change really quickly or we'd drown. PAM SEAGLE: I realized that I wasn't going to make it long. The cold was really, really getting to me. My limbs were getting harder to move. I had no strength. I just knew that I needed to get out of the water and into some sort of safety. I was so cold. I have no recollection of swimming back over to the raft. There are just these snapshots of things that come in. I remember just thinking there is no way I have the physical strength to try to get into that raft. It looked insurmountable, it was huge. Suddenly a hand reached down, I remember the white sleeve and the cufflink. It was the gold cufflink of the man that had been sitting in 2A. It felt like destiny, that we were supposed to intersect, the man was supposed to save me somehow. I'm looking round thinking now how do we get out of this? We're still in the middle of a river, attached to a plane that's about to sink. This is, this is not over. (General commotion) BRAD WENTZELL: Keep going, move. Finally we got up to the exit and I heard somebody say, PASSENGER: Oh my God, a baby! BRAD WENTZELL: Somebody reached up and grabbed the baby. Okay, okay. You got her? And at that point I lost her for the rest of the journey. People were shoulder to shoulder. It, it was a mess. We've got to make more room for more passengers and the only other place to step besides the wing was the raft. Give me your hand. And it's sitting under the wing of the plane. Ah! Ugh! We flipped it over, this gentlemen looks at me and says, someone is going to have to get in the back of that thing. Of course I realized then and there, you mean me? I leaped off the wing and I started pulling myself up the back. And was able to weigh it down then people starting boarding one at a time on to the thing. The only thing going through my mind at that point was this plane is about to sink. Is everybody out? How many people are dead? What's still in that plane? VALLIE COLLINS: As human beings we all know we're gonna die. I've known, I mean, nobody gets out this deal alive. But, you never think it's gonna be today. we've got a next month, we've got a next year. And, all of a sudden that was I'm sitting on the last row. The closest exit is going to be at the back behind me, so I bolt to the galley. When I get there the flight attendant is over by the left rear door. Well I went over and began, you know, assisting her. DOREEN WELSH: I couldn't believe she was doing this for a second. I said, the waters too deep we can't do this. Because had that door been opened, half the people would have died. That's common sense. That water would have rushed through half of that cabin in a minute. VALLIE COLLINS: She sort of looks around and at this point there's water. And she said you have 2 minutes, go to the wings. And then she was gone. And then in a matter of seconds, seconds, the water just came gushing in. It went from my ankles to like, above my chest. It's my worst nightmare recognized. DOREEN WELSH: Move forward! VALLIE COLLINS: I mean, I am in a closed confined space with water and I can't get out. The water's going to keep coming up, up and up and I'm going to drown. I did not want to drown. My first thought was my children. When you become a parent it's like um, for me it's like the (cries) sorry. It's like the best Christmas you've ever had. You know, when you're a little kid and you just can't wait to open up your Christmas presents. Being a parent for me is like my kids are like my Christmas presents. I can't wait to see what they're gonna be when they grow up. And, to think that I wasn't gonna get to see what they're gonna be, and what they're gonna do, was very sad. (Cries) But I had this calm come over me and I thought, No, You've gotta get off this plane. You've got three children, DOREEN WELSH: You can't use the back, go forward, go forward. I was screaming to the people. We can't use the back, go forward, go forward. That was the only thing I could possibly do back there, everything else was out of my control. You, let's go. Let's go. Let's go. Go, go! And it seems to me the passengers aren't moving and this is getting very dangerous at this point, because there's nowhere to go. There's absolutely nowhere to go. I seriously gave some thought to pushing past them. I could have. But in order to do that, I would have also had to push them behind me back into the deeper water and I gave that some serious thought. Who wouldn't? It's survival. But I didn't. I went kind of crazy, pushing and screaming and, whatever I had to. And I made sure that all those people frozen in front of me, when I pushed, I mean, I did whatever I had to do. Go move forward, move forward! Move forward, move forward. MARTIN SOSA: At a certain point I realized that the emergency exits were opened and, you can actually see it getting brighter as you, you ascended up the aisle. Finally, I saw Tess standing by the door with Damien. That was pretty powerful there she is, she's OK, She's not passed out, she's got Damien, he's awake, he's alert, he's not bleeding. I don't remember exchanging words, we were just, let's get the heck out of here! TESS SOSA: However I did not anticipate being on a wing, knee deep in freezing water, with a baby in my arms. That's really when the trauma set in and I started screaming my head off. (Screams) VALLIE COLLINS: She's scared. She is just scared. I mean she is scared for probably her own life. She's scared for her children. And she's scared for her husband. I mean everybody that she holds dearest to her heart is in a precarious situation. TESS SOSA: And then I stopped screaming and then people started screaming at me to throw Damian. CROWD: Throw the baby, throw the baby. TESS SOSA: There was no way I was going to throw him and I couldn't understand why they were yelling at me and telling me to throw my baby. (Loud screaming) It's not a good place to be when you're getting yelled at to do something that could pretty much kill your child. VALLIE COLLINS: This man I don't who is, to this day, I don't I don't know, who he was but he looked at me, he pointed at me and he says, Get those kids! So I thought, great, somebody has given me an action step, you have given me something to do. And I turn back to the mom and I said, Hand me your baby. TESS SOSA: She passed him onto another passenger. He was very wet so they were sort of covering him up trying to keep him warm. The lady took Sophia. She just held her. She just sort of made it her mission at that time to hold on to her. DOREEN WELSH: As I get to the wings I got a view of the front of that aircraft and I thought, there are rafts up there. Why would I go stand on a wing? When I got to the front the passenger from 1C didn't take their life vest. As I bent over I saw my leg. During the impact a piece of metal with an angle iron on the end came through the floor and went through my leg and I never felt it. I guess that's adrenaline. I still had no idea about the blood coming, nor did it matter but I didn't know any of that yet. I must have been a sight. I slid onto the raft, blood went everywhere. They were looking at me like, what happened to her? PASSENGER: Ferries! EILEEN SHLEFFAR: When I saw the ferry I thought finally help, someone's coming to rescue us and that felt so good. Over here! And that didn't last very long. The ferry had a really difficult time maneuvering towards the wing. And we realized... Stop! that it was gonna take us out. Everyone, threw up their hands and started screaming. Stop, No! Stop! It was huge, it was massive and it was coming right towards us. Stop! And it couldn't stop. (General screaming and shouting) The ferry clipped the wing and I slipped back into the water. (Heavy splashing sound) And you just were sickened. I thought it was so close to being over and then it wasn't over and then something terrible was gonna happen again. And we just kept going over and over and over, relief, fear. SHAE CHILDERS: Everybody was wanting to get on the ferry and it was like a, erm like a rope ladder. And I tried to grab a hold of it. But by then the ferry was having to back up. And it dragged me back into the water. help! I had already been in the water and I was so hypothermic. I thought I, I just can't, I can't, there's no way, I cannot climb up this rope ladder, there's, there's just no way I didn't have the energy, I didn't have the strength. I couldn't understand, you know, God had let me live through a plane crash but I was gonna die, you know, because I was gonna end up being sucked under this ferry. (Noise of Helicopter) Every time I looked over my right shoulder I would just sort of get a face full of water. My right hand slipped off and I'm just holding on with my left hand. I was thinking I won't get to see my children any more, you know, my husband (Cries) and I really thought that was gonna be it. Just as I looked over one more time (cries) Sorry. I saw someone swimming towards me. MICHAEL DELANEY: I asked her, her name. She said her name was Shae. And I said my name's Michael and I'm gonna help you get out of the water. As we got closer towards the scene, there was a flash of red that, that caught the corner of my eye She just really seemed to be holding on; she wasn't really climbing up or trying to get herself out of the water. And I said, That person right there. That's who we need to get to first. And that's when I jumped out of the helicopter. My name's Michael and I'm gonna get you out of the water. Once we realise we weren't gonna get up this cargo net. I said, you're gonna have to let go of the net. She said that, we're gonna get run over. I said, Listen, trust me. She let go reluctantly and I grabbed her by the arm so did Detective Rodriguez and we swam as hard as we could. SHAE CHILDERS: (Screams) MICHAEL DELANEY: One of the other boats that were in the area was going be our best opportunity. SHAE CHILDERS: I can just remember him holding me and telling me he had me and I just kept saying just, please don't let me go 'Cause I was pretty much dead weight. I was so hypothermic. All my energy was completely gone. MICHAEL DELANEY: We need to get you up here OK? That's when I slammed my hand on the deck. We're gonna need your help right now! It really only seemed like we had one shot to do this, one big burst of energy. We helped her out as much as we possibly could at that point. There was other people that needed our help also. NBC News: Good evening. It had just taken off from New York's La Guardia Airport bound for Charlotte, North Carolina and then a mid-air disaster struck US Airways flight 1549. Word arrived that a commercial jet liner was in the water with 155 people on board. DR. HILDA ROQUE-DIEGUEZ: The first time I heard about the plane I was just expecting a lot of lacerations. A lot of er um injured parts, bodies. Missing parts of the body. Because of the magnitude of the, of the event. There were I don't know how many ambulance with all the lights going. There were police cars. Cameras rolling. Um a lot of flashes. REPORTER: Doctor. Doctor. Any information about the accident, anything at all? DR. HILDA ROQUE-DIEGUEZ: One of the paramedics says, Doc I need your help. We have the Captain I need for you to come and check him out. I see this man with the captain's shirt. His face was really, really red and his eyes were open with the blue green eyes like coming out of his face. ...not sure how long he's been on the water... right. And I'm like, Captain? And he kept saying, BARRY LEONARD: I'm not the captain. DR. HILDA ROQUE-DIEGUEZ: And I said I understand you're not the captain but are you Okay? Settle him. BARRY LEONARD: But I'm not the Captain. So now I'm saying, He's hallucinating. So now I'm saying to the paramedic, he's in worse shape than what you think so. He's in worse shape so let's do something about this! BARRY LEONARD: I was, I was getting very agitated and frustrated about everybody asking me if I was the pilot because I obviously wasn't a pilot and, and but I knew it was confusing to people but I think people probably thought that I was hallucinating. During the impact I was pretty seriously injured. I had cracked my sternum. But I didn't know it. I think because of the adrenalin at that time. And I remember Sully coming out and saying, Evacuate. I took one step forward and I remember actually looking back at my seat to see if my body was still there. When the flight attendant opened the door I jumped into the Hudson. (Heavy splashing water) The water just enveloped me. Ah! And I just remember looking up and it was honestly like, like people were, were, were um walking on the water. I felt maybe I was dead and that I was actually watching ghost walk on water. I thought are these people actually dead? Am I actually dead? To this day I have no idea how I got on the raft. None at all. There was a gentleman and he had a pilot's shirt on. He looked at me and saw how much I was shivering and realized that my body was in shock and he said, sir you have to get outta those clothes or you're gonna freeze to death. He starts unbuttoning his pilot's shirt and then puts it around me. DR. HILDA ROQUE-DIEGUEZ: Shhh. It's alright. As soon as I open his shirt and I see this black and blue in his chest, alright. I thought this man is bleeding internally. I said, He's the one that has to go right now. And we shipped him out to the hospital. I started running to the different area of the marina, with expectation that there were gonna be more injured passengers. What I had imagined in my head and what I saw there was a completely different story. Completely different. I basically saw people just sitting with the blankets covering themselves and like this. Like they were frozen in time. You could hear people breathing, that's how silent it was. There was only a baby crying very faint on the back. People would not even acknowledge me. They just keep looking and staring me like this. MARTIN SOSA: The only way I could describe it is just shock, I mean you're just in disbelief, and uh, you've, your your body has just gone through this, roller coaster and, on every level, physically, emotionally, psych, Psychologically. I was just pacing around and, and trying to kind of put this whole thing together. Tess was in a great deal of shock and her main concern was her children, of course as any mother would be. And, and uh, you know, she was very distraught. TESS SOSA: All I could think about was how disempowered I felt as a mother. Handing my child over to this one and that one and needing so much help. I just felt terrible. And then I heard this voice that said, Amazing Mom and I think I just started crying, because I didn't feel that way at all. EILEEN SHLEFFAR: I think I was most concerned at that point on whether I was gonna get the feeling back in my hands and my feet, um, because they were still kind of purple. I looked down in my hand and I was still clutching my phone. I think my fingers were frozen around that phone. BRAD WENTZELL: They put these necklaces around us with stickers on them. And you realise right then and there what they're doing. They're counting. That was a very uncertain feeling. You realise they're, they're taking count to see how many of you made it. We're waiting to find out how many died. Suddenly they make this announcement, Oh my God, we got everybody! (Applause) It was just one of those most amazing moments in your life where you realize, I'm a part of a miracle; 155 people crashed and everybody, everybody survived. It's, it's unreal. It's absolutely unreal. PAM SEAGLE: Because I had been in the water so long, they realized I had hypothermia, I had been vomiting for a while, so they had assessed me and said that I needed to go to the hospital. And it was when I was being wheeled out to the back of an ambulance there that I realized how big this... There was helicopters circling overhead, there was media. There were lights everywhere. I remember I just couldn't even see. And being asked questions as I'm wheeling out what happened, how are you? REPORTERS: Please tell us what happened? How are you? Are there any other survivors? Please tell us what happened? PAM SEAGLE: And all I kept thinking was I don't, I don't know what happened, I really, can someone explain to me what just happened? BRAD WENTZELL: You're rushed by reporters. They see you in this Red Cross blanket and the cameras in your face. What happened da da da da da. REPORTERS: He's gonna talk, he's gonna talk, sir? BRAD WENTZELL: I remember just looking at the camera and saying, This pilot is the reason my daughter still has a father. Little did I know that that blurb was gonna follow me for the next several months. Every single time I turned the TV they would say, And they would 'da da da, go to commercial! (Laughs) It was crazy DOREEN WELSH: It just didn't end, and we as a crew went, maybe for a year, to all of these places and things we got to do. We did the David Letterman show, he said, would you still say you are in shock? And I turned to him and I said, I'm on the David Letterman Show, yes, I mean that alone is a shock for anybody to go through NEWS REPORT: Let's get the latest now on what's being called, 'The Miracle on the Hudson' and everyone on board lived to tell the story. SOUND BYTE: We've had a miracle on 34th street. I believe we've now had a miracle on the Hudson. EILEEN SHLEFFAR: I am truly convinced that is was a miracle. I was truly, truly grateful. But the dark side of that is that there are nightmares and there's anxiety. It was a very difficult return to normalcy. VALLIE COLLINS: If you asked me today if I would board flight 1549 I would not because it's still just too hard. My hope is that that going through an experience like this one will make me a better person, will make me a better mom, make me a better wife, a better sister, a better daughter. BARRY LEONARD: I was lucky that day, and it just keeps reminding me that I'm still here and I'm with my family and that there are other things that I need to do with this life. BRAD WENTZELL: Something good happened for the first time in a long time and people, people needed that, and, er, I was, I was ecstatic to be a part of it.