The smell of jet fuel is strong; the plane is mostly submerged, just showing the blue US Airways tail and the engineless left wing above the water surface. It’s tied with cable and rope to a few trees in the Hudson River Park at the foot of Murray Street in lower Manhattan.
We captured this seemingly peaceful scene today and will feature the footage in an upcoming episode of our FDNY Web TV series produced by Mitchell Gilbert of ScribeMedia.
Yesterday, as we know, a flock of geese crippled US Airways Flight 1549 and forced it to land in the Hudson River minutes after leaving La Guardia Airport. Since then, the jet’s drifted all the way from 43rd street on Manhattan’s West side to the downtown pier in Battery Park City, near the World Trade Center.
FDNY Rescue 1 and Marine Fire Rescue are handling the plane. They smiled, looking at the jet sinking in the ice water, figuring out how to remove this now jet-fuel environmental hazard. The rescue operation went unbelievably smoothly; miraculously, the accident that could have turned into a tragedy ended up like a Hollywood movie with 156 people saved.
The upcoming episode of our FDNY web series we will be highlighting special units including the FDNY Marine Unit and Rescue One. These FDNY units were one of many that responded to the call for help when the plane crash-landed in the Hudson River. They took part in the miraculous rescue that helped save so many lives. These units as well as others from the FDNY remain on scene today ready to react if the remaining jet fuel ignites. They have hose lines stretched to the plane from idling pumper trucks about 100 yards away, set to deliver water and foam in an instant.
The upcoming FDNY episode will feature the close-ups we got today — the coffee cup floating behind the pilot’s window in a cockpit full of water, so too the large hole punched in sinking fuselage and the wing with icicles on it in place of the engine.
With our next FDNY episode, ScribeMedia will interview the brave people who helped with this rescue.
