How 'bout a shoutout for the ferry guys?!
Everyone should look at the video Josh put up on the front page of the first moments of the rescue, and give a shout out not just to ol' Sully, but to the ferry pilots and crews.
As a Long Islander (hence the username), I've got a very limited amount of sailing experience, & I've taken my share of ferry rides. I've felt how huge & difficult to maneuver those massive tubs are; and I've also experienced how tricky it is just to coax a 19-foot sailboat into a nice sheltered marina berth.
The video shows how the plane is turned sideways, and drifting quite quickly with the tide down towards the Battery. For those ferry captains to so quickly sidle up to a moving target, close enough to get the people aboard, without making potentially disastrous contact, is one fuckin' awesome bit of piloting, and the work of the crews is some bitchin' seamanship. Their job is nowhere near as glamorous, or well-paid, as an airline pilot's, but in my view their skill and coolness under pressure is every bit as impressive. They're heroes too.
As a Long Islander (hence the username), I've got a very limited amount of sailing experience, & I've taken my share of ferry rides. I've felt how huge & difficult to maneuver those massive tubs are; and I've also experienced how tricky it is just to coax a 19-foot sailboat into a nice sheltered marina berth.
The video shows how the plane is turned sideways, and drifting quite quickly with the tide down towards the Battery. For those ferry captains to so quickly sidle up to a moving target, close enough to get the people aboard, without making potentially disastrous contact, is one fuckin' awesome bit of piloting, and the work of the crews is some bitchin' seamanship. Their job is nowhere near as glamorous, or well-paid, as an airline pilot's, but in my view their skill and coolness under pressure is every bit as impressive. They're heroes too.
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You bet Lorne, but they were not and are not forgotten. They got a lot of play on cable. Visuals and timing and interviews.
Oh my god, somebody is in trouble and wooosh. Some were regulars and got there in two minutes. Some were just there and moved right in and had the equipment to start helping.
A part of the Hudson, America came together with one task in mind.
January 17, 2009 7:15 PM | Reply | Permalink
many say the hudson separates new york and america; i say it connects them. beautiful to see.
January 18, 2009 3:53 PM | Reply | Permalink
nice visual
January 18, 2009 4:14 PM | Reply | Permalink
I wonder how many of those pilots were changing course to the anticipated impact point while the plane was still airborne?
January 17, 2009 9:11 PM | Reply | Permalink
Actually, one other piece of incredible luck in the whole thing was that there wasn't a ferry right there in the path of the plane. The accident apparently happened when all the crews & ferries were up & running for the evening rush, but before the high volume of runs.
January 17, 2009 11:42 PM | Reply | Permalink
Oh, but I don't think any of them were forewarned of the approach or anything. It all happened insanely fast.
January 17, 2009 11:43 PM | Reply | Permalink
Let's hope none. If clear waterway weren't available for the plane's power off landing, not telling what the death toll would have been.
January 18, 2009 2:51 PM | Reply | Permalink
What you saw wasn't skill ... it was a ballet. The aircraft was floating and being pulled downstream by the current while the ferrys were racing to rendezvous with it. Because they cross the river some much, they are attuned to the river drift and know how to crab into the current. Note the first ferry to meet the stricken aircraft came from the down river side. The ferry pilot knowing the river current easily slipped right up to the plane without stirring a wake because the wake from his forward momentum was being canceled by the downstream current ... that's a master at work doing what he knows best!
January 17, 2009 9:44 PM | Reply | Permalink
In the face of the bravery of the ferry pilots, Captain Sullenberger, the crew of the airplane, the bravery of the passengers, the great selfless courage of the NYFD on 9/11, can we take a moment and recall the implicit sliming done by Palin and the Republicans of the rest of us when they, in their culture wars, celebrate only the small-town South as the "real" America.
January 17, 2009 10:49 PM | Reply | Permalink
Absolutely right, VLaszlo, and I'm from a small town myself. But your point needs to be shouted from every media outlet. This is the perfect example - though just one of many examples - of why that "real America" stuff was so wrong (we already knew that it was vile).
January 18, 2009 9:45 AM | Reply | Permalink
Too bad, the pilot was from Denison Texas, a 'small town' about twenty miles from here. Good thing he had all that karma provided by them yankees below though, huh?
January 18, 2009 2:55 PM | Reply | Permalink
See that thing, soaring high above your head?
That thing was the point of VLaszlo's comment. Unsurprisingly, it's out of your reach.
January 18, 2009 3:47 PM | Reply | Permalink
It figures you are from Texas, spric. That really explains a lot. Hey, listen. Take your Lone Star and go make your own country. Ya got nuthin' constructive to offer.
January 19, 2009 3:20 PM | Reply | Permalink
In watching them approach, I had the same respect all of you are expressing. All I can say is, "WOW! Great boat handling!"
***
P.S. Did anyone else notice that at about the 3:12 mark, someone falls off the right wing and then someone else rushes to pull him back onto the wing?
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January 18, 2009 12:29 AM | Reply | Permalink
Yes. I saw that. Got a lump in my throat.
January 18, 2009 9:28 AM | Reply | Permalink
As someone else pointed out at Shakesville I think it was, the flight and boat crews are all union members who get the best emergency training.
Somebody correct me if I'm wrong but didn't the pilot land near the Circle line tourist boat docks? I've taken rides around Manhattan a couple of times on them and I recommend them highly.
We gotta stop giving New Yorkers opportunities to prove how heroic they are. Might give 'em big heads or something. LOL.
January 18, 2009 10:19 AM | Reply | Permalink
LMAO! Yeah, we should give them a break.
January 19, 2009 3:21 PM | Reply | Permalink
Thursday we also had Bush in fearmongering mode telling us how he'd kept us safe. Ha!
Meanwhile, the folks running those ferries weren't paralyzed waiting for Dubya to come to the rescue and they weren't terrified that the airliner was a terrorist threat that would explode if they approached it.
It struck me that this was such a redemptive moment for pilots and first responders who were unable to change the course of events on 9/11. This time they could make all the difference and they did.
January 18, 2009 11:29 AM | Reply | Permalink
Beautiful thoughts.
January 18, 2009 12:08 PM | Reply | Permalink
My sentiments exactly, bluebell. Not only a great piece of work by everyday people... but the fact that this time none died in the cause, and the passengers were saved, is truly worth celebrating.
So a shout-out to the Ferry Guys - and all the others who showed up when the call came out.
January 18, 2009 3:09 PM | Reply | Permalink
I'll add my insignificant hosannas to the ferry operators here. Thanks for the post. Rec'd.
January 18, 2009 2:20 PM | Reply | Permalink
From an essay by Elfie Raymond on The Language Exchange site:
"....Mark Twain learned the meaning of his pen name while he was a river boat pilot on the Mississippi. A 'mark twain' was, and still is an exact measure of safety for a river boat to proceed without danger of running aground in the Mississippi's ever shifting shallows and silt banks. To prevent calamity the ship's captain must rely on the pilot whose soundings of the river's depth must insure two fathoms, or two times six feet of water for the boat's passage. A Mark Twain or "heed twice" is two fathoms and signals safety and danger at once. Mark Twain is much more than the writer Samuel Clemens' pen name. These two commando words are nothing less than the writer's prudential philosophy drawn from experience and compressed into a slogan. The utility of the metaphor rests with the fact that it reminds us to cultivate caution and foresight - pronoia - while navigating the shoals and silt drifts of the great river of time, a river which is always yet never the same. Caution and foresight are not the grand American virtues that Whitman propounded; they are the sober and modest ones that are often neglected. Today amidst the turbulences close by and far-flung of a world in crisis, to recall the Mississippi river boat pilot's job to measure twice and fathom the depth of the unseen may seem merely quaint. But heeding the pilot's example improves exponentially the chances for safe passage...."
Cheers to the riverboat pilots on the Hudson.
January 18, 2009 4:59 PM | Reply | Permalink