STYLETHREAD -- LET'S TALK SHOP!

Hermes

Hudson River landing

Collette · Chanel

I couldn't stop watching it,, it was amazing. I cannot believe everyone survived a crash like that and for the plane to keep afloat was unbelieveable. That pilot better be rewarded for keeping all those people alive.

Hermes

the pilot was amazing. even though it's not really a "happy" story, it's nice to have a hero right now.

not only could I not imagine being a passenger and going through that, I cannot imagine being in the city and seeing a plane coming down -- it had to be petrifying for the witnesses too.

FashionPrincess · Hermes

D wrote:

not only could I not imagine being a passenger and going through that, I cannot imagine being in the city and seeing a plane coming down -- it had to be petrifying for the witnesses too.

This is what I thought too, to be a witness not knowing what was happening had to be scary too in this post-911 world we live in.

And that water had to be flipping cold!!!!!!! I'm so glad everyone is ok!

Hermes

OMG yes - that water had to be extremely cold! Plus, I kind of get the heebie jeebies about touching icky water like a major urban river. I would have had to have gotten over a lot of hang ups to stand on the wing of that plane!

oh and kudos to the ferry that immediately changed course to get people. it's sad but these days it seems like people tend to look the other way instead of help people in distress. I'm glad that wasn't the case here.

NCshopper · Hermes

This is such an amazing story. Although I'm sure it's terrifying to be in that situation, it sounds like if you were in that situation, he'd be the best person to have as a pilot, given his background in air safety.

FYI, my dad is a retired USAirways pilot and trained this pilot on two differnet airplanes over the the past two decades. I'd like to think my dad had something to do with it.

Whether or not that's true though, we'll never know; I'm proud of this pilot either way. My point though is that a lot of people and news networks are proclaiming this as a "miracle," but the fact is that many, many people put many, many man-hours into making air travel safe for all of us. This is truly an incredible event and the people on board this plane are incredibly lucky to be alive given the circumstances, but the amount of time that pilots, flight attendants and other professionals have put into making something like this possible shouldn't be discounted.

Hermes

NCshopper wrote:

This is such an amazing story. Although I'm sure it's terrifying to be in that situation, it sounds like if you were in that situation, he'd be the best person to have as a pilot, given his background in air safety.

FYI, my dad is a retired USAirways pilot and trained this pilot on two differnet airplanes over the the past two decades. I'd like to think my dad had something to do with it. Whether or not that's true though, we'll never know; I'm proud of this pilot either way. My point though is that a lot of people and news networks are proclaiming this as a "miracle," but the fact is that many, many people put many, many man-hours into making air travel safe for all of us. This is truly an incredible event and the people on board this plane are incredibly lucky to be alive given the circumstances, but the amount of time that pilots, flight attendants and other professionals have put into making something like this possible shouldn't be discounted.

That's so cool that your dad trained him!

To the contrary, I did not hear of this being called a miracle, but I did hear that he had extensive military and commercial experience. Those passengers were extremely lucky to have him as a pilot!

Suasoria · Chanel

I was on a 'news fast' for the last couple of weeks but this one I couldn't avoid, and I was glad that I heard about it since it WAS such an amazing story and thus a great way to break the fast. Thanks for bringing it up - and definitely your dad had something to do with it.

You're familiar with the many "boat people" who escaped by sea during the Vietnam War. Calling them "boats" is an overstatement - more like rafts cobbled together with anything at hand. While hundreds of thousands died, many others survived - apparently regardless of how seaworthy their craft was. There is a story told by Buddhist monks that the one thing in common among all the surviving boats was that they each had a meditator on board who was able to infuse in their fellow refugees a sense of inner calm in the face of tragedy.

The accounts I heard about this pilot was that he had that same sense of peace, so I thought of this story.