| Airplane ditches into Hudson River |
A US Airways plane was down in the Hudson River on Thursday after attempting to take off from LaGuardia Airport, officials said. US Airways Flight 1549, an Airbus A320, was headed to Charlotte, North Carolina.
The pilot radioed to air traffic controllers that he had experienced a bird strike -- when a bird or flock of birds is sucked into the jet engine -- and declared an emergency.
FAA spokeswoman Laura Brown also said preliminary information indicates a bird strike. The plane was in the air for about 3 minutes before it went down.
The aircraft had 146 passengers and 5 crew members aboard.
The plane approached the water at a gradual angle and made a big splash, according to a witness watching from an office building. "It wasn't going particularly fast. It was a slow contact with the water that it made," said the witness, Ben Vonklemperer.
Note: WOW! This is, to the best of my knowledge, a historic occasion. For the first time in aviation history an airliner successfully ditches.
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