The “Miracle on the Hudson" was a much skill as luck

Miracle on the Hudson: Checking in with Sully Sullenberger 15 years later

15 years ago, Sully Sullenberger, an airline captain from Danville, landed a U.S. Airways jet on the Hudson River in New York. It became known as the "Miracle on the Hudson." We take a look back at what was the aviation industrys most successful emergency water landing.

OAKLAND, Calif. - There were a number of remembrances and reunions commemorating what is known as the ‘Miracle on the Hudson’ that saved the lives of every person on board an ill-fated U.S. Airways plane going from New York to North Carolina on January 15, 2009.

The truth is, it wasn't a miracle. It's what happened when a skilled airline crew and first responders got the plane to a place where rescue was possible.

Fifteen years ago, just before 3:30 p.m., US Airways Flight 1549, departing New York's LaGuardia Airport, ran into a flock of Canadian geese at 2,800 feet. The geese that were ingested into the Airbus's twin engines caused both to fail, dangerously low to the ground.

Knowing they had neither the speed nor altitude to land at any nearby airport, Captain Sully Sullenberger and co-pilot, First Officer Jeffrey Skiles, glided the plane and its 155 souls to a remarkable belly landing on the Hudson River where the plane remained intact and floated.

The flight crew and first responders, no doubt, saved many lives from the frigid water. "We're all one team. We're all one family. There's nothing I can't say about how grateful I am, personally, that I was able to go home and be with my family after 1549, 15 years ago," said flight 1549 passenger Denise Lockie.

FILE - Chesley "Sully" Sullenberger.

In fact, many first responders had recently finished a training exercise on how to save people from another kind of potential hypothermia and drowning.

"That plan was for a sinking ferry or a sinking vessel and how EMS, police and fire would respond to these events and what we would do. So I took that plan and just changed the ferry to an airplane. And, the rest is history," said first responder Gio Ahmad.

Though passengers later reported 90 minor injuries and five serious ones, no one died. Numerous passengers and some rescuers and even one air-traffic controller reported Incidents of PTSD, post-traumatic stress disorder.

Captain Sullenberger credited his success to more than four decades of education, training and experience at the controls. He has been a stickler on the need for aircraft to be more resilient; a lesson Boeing and Alaska Airlines are learning now.

"We have to do, I think, a better job of holistically looking at entire aircraft designs, from start to finish, and looking at risks, not just individually, but in combination; seeing where the failures paths are and the effects they will have," said Captain Sullenberger a few years ago.

The geese paid a heavy price. As of 2017, more than 70,000 birds have been killed as well as their nests and eggs where anti bird strike defenses continue at New York airports. The Federal Aviation Administration estimates that so-called "bird strikes" cost the US aviation industry annually $600 million in damage.