Originally Posted by
usmc-sgt
One thing I have found most interesting in what the crew did that day was not how they landed but the decision to land where they did. I personally think that is where their experience showed, not necessarily being able to hold wings level and nose up at touch down.
I have often thought about that exact same situation out of 100 pilots how many of them would have decided to touch down in the hudson as opposed to doing whatever it takes to make one of the 3 nearby runways.
I think they made the right choice (obviously) as an attempt at any runway even if remotely unsuccessful would have been catastrophic with many losses of life.
Just food for thought as I am not sure my experience level would have told me in the heat of battle to put it down in the hudson, I may have tried TEB and we can all guess how that would have turned out.
At 3000 ft at time of the event i dont know if you could make it to TEB. I've been in and out of LGA lately and taken a look at it, TEB would have been a HUGE gamble. The gamble would have not only risked those on the plane but many people on the ground. Also if you come up short your chances of hitting structures would have been high thus increasing the chance of loss of life on board. He made the right call regardless of the outcome and did so in a very short period of time.
There are some swamp like areas over in that direction but that would have made it very hard for rescue crews to have reached the wreckage.
Bottom line is he did a fantastic job imho.