Pilots admire Airbus miracle

By KATIE SEMINARA

Local pilots give a nod to the man responsible for the Hudson River landing.

Dealing with crisis situations should be “second nature” when flying an aircraft, said Bill Sweeney of Boardman, who has been flying helicopters for 40 years.

“From a pilot’s perspective, I certainly think he personified exactly what we’re supposed to do,” Sweeney said of Chesley Sullenberger III, of Danville, Calif., the pilot who helped to glide 155 passengers to safety Thursday.

A US Airways Airbus A320 jet struck a flock of birds minutes after its takeoff from LaGuardia Airport. With engines out, the plane originally destined for Charlotte, N.C., wound up in the frigid Hudson River.

“Most commuter and military pilots are trained and drilled with emergency procedures,” said Sweeney. “As far as professionalism and skill goes, this guy [Sullenberger] seems to be the top of the class.”

Don Bernier is Winner Aviation’s flight department manager in Vienna Township and chief pilot. He is rated to fly the Boeing 737, Hawker 400XP and King Air 350.

He said the airman’s information manual instructs pilots faced with ditching (a forced landing on water) to follow the following procedure: “Touchdown should be at the lowest speed and rate of descent which permit safe handling and optimum nose up attitude on impact. Once first impact has been made, there is often little the pilot can do to control a land plane.”

“From the reports I have seen, the flight crew executed the maneuver precisely,” Bernier said. “Radar reports showed the aircraft at 300 feet of elevation, sinking slowly, and flying 153 knots, which is a slow speed for a plane the size of the A320. What matters most is that everyone survived. Credit is due not only to the captain and his entire crew but to each and every soul that maintained composure during the perilous situation.”

He said Winner Aviation and its pilot group has not faced a forced ditching, but it’s not uncommon for the Winner maintenance department to service an aircraft after an apparent bird strike. A bird strike is required to be reported to the FAA, and a complete maintenance procedure exists when such events do occur.

In 1995, a military version of the B707, a four-engine jet-powered aircraft, lost power due to a bird strike at Elmendorf Air Force Base in Alaska, Bernier explained. The aircraft was destroyed and 24 people lost their lives.

Sullenberger didn’t have much time to react to the problems he faced, because the strike happened during takeoff, said Dick Weinzierl, head pilot instructor for Haski Aviation at the New Castle Municipal Airport in Pennsylvania.

“If something happens in a car, you can pull off to the side of the road. In an aircraft, you have to deal with it in the air,” said Weinzierl.

Sullenberger “kept his cool and did things right,” he said.

Weinzierl said general emergency procedures are taught at Haski, including what could happen in the case of a bird strike.

“I always say [to students], ‘Don’t make an emergency landing until you’ve tried everything else, assuming you have time,’” he said.

Weinzierl works with small propeller planes, and birds have been known to hit and go through the wind screen, which is like a car’s windshield, he said. Pilots and passengers can be hurt as a result of a bird’s coming through the wind screen, and it also creates extra wind and noise in the cabin.

In Sweeney’s 40 years of flying, he has been subjected to bird strikes twice. Bigger birds create larger problems, and jets have less maneuverability, making flocks of birds harder to avoid. Sweeney said he heard a jet engine described as being “like a Hoover sweeper with a Cuisinart,” since Thursday’s accident.

Both Sweeney and Weinzierl agreed Sullenberger handled the emergency with an astounding display of skill.

“For the people on board, it was absolutely a miracle,” said Sweeney.

kseminara@vindy.com