Miracles
are wonderful things. One happened in New York City five years ago last week
when a US Airways plane crash-landed in the Hudson River. The fact that
everyone survived was a miracle.
According
to Philosopher David Hume a miracle is "a transgression of a law of nature
by a particular volition of the Deity, or by the interposition of some
invisible agent."
In this
case it was the interposition of a “visible” agent, the pilot, and I'm sure,
the Deity.
I am a
private pilot. I have studied aerodynamics and practiced flight emergency
procedures. Most of my flight training and experience of several hundred hours
of logged flight time took place to and from and in the New York air space
system. I have flown the Hudson River air corridor dozens of times. Teterboro,
a couple of miles west of the Hudson was my home airport.
The
intricacies of a crash landing in water are immense. Everything about the
control and configuration of the aircraft has to be perfect. Angle of descent.
Flair. Airspeed. Flaps. That time, that day, in New York everything was
precise.
Pilot C.
B. "Sully" Sullenberger and his flight crew did everything perfect.
Many of
the passengers and Captain Sullenberger came back to the Hudson River last week
to remember and to celebrate. When you experience a miracle, you don’t forget
and you forever say, “thank you.”
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