"You gotta give it to the pilot, he made a hell of a landing."

Why is it that crashes into the water seem to happen only in the coldest month of the year? Any way you cut it, those are some lucky folks out there. Every one of them ought to be buying a lottery ticket before the day's over. (For anyone living under a rock, as I do most days, an Airbus A320 with 155 souls on board ditched in the Hudson today, shortly after take off from La Guardia for Charlotte, NC. All survived! A double bird strike was the suspected cause (double, as in both engines, likely multiple birds in either or both).

Aviation experts said that landing a commercial jet on water without the plane breaking apart was extraordinary.

"A water landing is typically even more destructive than a ground landing. It is amazing an Airbus jet was able to land in the river without breaking up," said Max Vermij, a plane accident investigator with Accident Cause Analysis of Ottawa, Canada.

He speculated the plane would have hit the water at a speed of about 140 knots. "Typically the wings and engines would break off on impact, water would plow into the jet and tear apart the fuselage."

Get the full article here.

And here is video, from the cockpit of a "lawn dart" encountering much the same thing. Thank God for ejection seats.

I love how calm the IP remains throughout.