Jan 19: A plane, A river and a miracle
Spot the plane in the picture.
You will, of course, be forgiven for looking up in the sky and finding nothing. Now look closer. Look, it's on the river!
I am, of course, referring to US Air flight 1549 which landed in the Hudson and everyone aboard ended up safe. The pics above show the plane after it was lifted out of the river and put on a barge. Some of you have asked me if I saw the plane land in the Hudson. I did not as I was at work. My office building overlooks the East River (East of Manhattan). Thank goodness the plane didn't land there. With several bridges, Roosevelt Island and other strctures, it would have been very difficult to pull off. From my office building, I can also see planes take off from La Guardia - and watch them turn toward the Bronx and go west (see the map).
The Hudson (which is west of Manhattan) is relatively clear of obstacles, but it was still a close call. Here's why. The Hudson river sees heavy traffic on weekdays. NY Waterway and Liberty Water Taxi run several ferries that dash across the river between NY and various points in NJ. Circle line runs ferry tours for tourists. Then there are tugboats towing barges that go up and down periodically. Finally, there are cruise ships that dock at the terminal near 42nd street - very close to where the plane eventually landed. Huge ships - the likes of QE II - dock there (see my other post on QE2 and QM2). For a plane moving at 100+ miles an hour and no power, avoiding all of these was a miracle. On the west bank of the Hudson are Weekhawken, West New York, Hoboken and Jersey City - all densely populated with residential towers hugging the coast. I am in one of those river hugging towers at the southern tip of Jersey City.
On the east bank are the buildings that make up the famous NY skyline. The plane just managed to clear the George Washington Bridge by 1000 ft or so. Fortunately the only other bridge, south of the GW is the Verrazano - which is far off. There are two tunnels (Lincoln and Holland), but they are far below the surface. everything had to go just right - and it did!
