The Hudson River Landing

[uh1h430]

You know this landing on the Hudson has been going on over 10 days now and I can not get this one question out of my mind. Not to take anything away from the pilot or the crew.

But this airplanes floats, I mean it really floats and not for just a few hours but over 24 hours. So now this sparks the question.

But it also brings to mind a story of this one guy I meet from my days at Air Heritage on the Beaver County Airport. Beaver County Airport is just north of Pgh Int, so a good number of US Air people keep their airplanes both current and retired. Anyway this one day I'm talking with this one retired US Air pilot who was there in the Allegheny days, this other US retired guy walks by and says hi and the guy I'm talking with says "Hey No Gas hows it going".

Well I just got to ask him whats the No Gas thing.

Back during the Allegheny days this guy ran all the airplanes. And this one
day he comes out and tells everyone no more full tanks on the airplanes from now on each airplane gets only fuel to get to its airport and thats it.

No Gas made a ton of money for Allegheny by this.

So I'm wondering what the take off weight of this airplane was. And what the airplanes max take off weight is.

And I'm wondering that the center line fuel tanks in this airplane were empty. I mean it was only going to NC.

Which would explain why the airplane floated so well

Any thoughts

[Matt Gunsch]

it floated so well because the fuselage was not ruptured. Also the fuel tanks were not ruptured, and fuel is lighter than water.

[51fixer]

1st- Fuel is lighter than water so even a fully loaded aircraft will float if intact.
Airliner class aircraft are also designed to be able to float after a controlled water landing.
In the 40s to the 60s the Coast Guard had ships on station in the middle of the pacific between Hawaii and the West Coast. One of there missions was to be a ditching station for A/C in trouble. It happened on occasion.
My opinion is that water landings may not be trained or encouraged as much as might be needed in the past. I think of the Swiss Air crash were they flew on trying to make land rather than ditch.
Difficult decisions and in this case it was great to have such a positive outcome.
Rich

[Mike Bates]

You might find this interesting, Stratocruiser ditching. Even has some pictures from the cutter it ditched by.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pan_Am_Flight_943

Mike

[Airplanejunkie]

Airliners rarely take off with full tanks. Without knowing much about the Airbus, I bet he was only around 25% of fuel capacity for LGA-CLT.

Even so, as has been pointed out, fuel is lighter than water and, probably more importantly, the fuel tanks are a fairly small percentage of the interior volume of the airplane. Passenger, baggage and mechanical compartments comprise the vast majority of the interior space. As long as there are no big holes, it will float a long time.

Over on the Vintage Aircraft section someone posted an old video of a 337 ditching. I was amazed how long it floated even with severe damage (the frapping tail torn off!!)

[The Inspector]

The joke circulating inside Boeing is that everyone knows that $#)t floats

Don't get down on me. I merely brought the message as oft repeated inside the big house on Hwy 526 & Airport Way in S. Everett

[Ken]

My opinion is that water landings may not be trained or encouraged as much as might be needed in the past. I think of the Swiss Air crash were they flew on trying to make land rather than ditch.

All true. There are some big differences between a controlled drift down from the flight levels and losing power at 3000'. There's day vs. night, VMC vs. IMC. Sea conditions on a river vs. the ocean. Rescue boats a moment away vs. hours away. Fighting smoke and fire vs. loss of thrust. I think this crew did a mighty fine job of playing the cards dealt to them. It's certainly not the norm for everyone to get out essentially uninjured. Nice to have some good news for a change.

[airnutz]

But this airplanes floats, I mean it really floats and not for just a few hours but over 24 hours.

The entire crew of Cactus 1549 was on Letterman last night as the sole feature guests. Quite a chuckle as you
may imagine with Letterman as the instigator.

Doreen Welsh, the aft cabin flight attendant, let on that they would have been better off without the "help" of one
of the passengers. The lady passenger blew past Welsh and opened the aft cabin door soon putting coach in chest
deep water! Welsh tossed the passenger aside and attempted to seal the compartment before it came to that, but
she could not regain a watertight seal. 1549 probably would have floated alot drier for a time without the misplaced
good intentions.

Transcribed dialogue of Letterman show #3063, tho some of the "who said what", is incorrectly tranferred...
http://lateshow.cbs.com/latenight/lates ... 0210.phtml

[richkolasa]

1st- Fuel is lighter than water so even a fully loaded aircraft will float if intact.
Airliner class aircraft are also designed to be able to float after a controlled water landing.
In the 40s to the 60s the Coast Guard had ships on station in the middle of the pacific between Hawaii and the West Coast. One of there missions was to be a ditching station for A/C in trouble. It happened on occasion.
My opinion is that water landings may not be trained or encouraged as much as might be needed in the past. I think of the Swiss Air crash were they flew on trying to make land rather than ditch.
Difficult decisions and in this case it was great to have such a positive outcome.
Rich

Hey dude! Did you read that Ben moved his right foot the other day!
Good stuff, made my day.

Rich