Jet engines detached after crash; Hudson River is searched

NEW YORK — The US Airways plane that came down in the Hudson River on Thursday had both engines stripped off, probably on impact, and the Coast Guard and the Army Corps of Engineers were searching for them at the bottom of the Hudson on Friday with sonar, National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) officials said.

The engines are a crucial piece of evidence for investigators trying to determine why the plane, Flight 1549 from LaGuardia Airport, lost power over the Bronx just before 3:30 p.m.

The pilot reported "a double bird strike" shortly after takeoff, and federal investigators said the engines' internal parts should yield enough DNA to determine whether it was birds that disabled both the plane's engines and the kind of birds.

That both engines detached from the Airbus A320 was among several factors that limited progress in the investigation. The pilot considered diverting to Teterboro Airport, in New Jersey, but chose to ditch instead, a dangerous maneuver executed so well that there were no deaths among the 155 people on board. One person suffered two broken legs.

It was not clear when the engine broke off, but in a photograph of the plane as it approached the river, it appeared to have both engines.

Investigators planned today to interview the pilot, C.B. "Sully" Sullenberger, and his co-pilot, Jeff Skiles, seeking clues to the accident and insights into their decision to ditch.

Pilot "very calm, cool"

James Ray, a spokesman for the U.S. Airline Pilots Association, said he spoke with Sullenberger on Friday and said he was "just very calm and cool, very relaxed, just very professional."

He added the crew had been asked not to speak to the media until after the federal investigators complete their work.

The pilot's status as a national hero rose by the hour as he took congratulatory calls from the president and president-elect, earned effusive praise from passengers and become the subject of a growing global fan club.

The plane was moored late Friday in about 30 feet of water on the east side of the Hudson near the lower tip of Manhattan, the left wing in the air and the right wedged against the embankment. Divers were trying to rig it so a crane could lift it onto a barge, but strong currents limited them to moments when the tide ebbed. Officials expected to remove the plane today.

Investigators said they were confident the plane's cockpit voice recorder and flight data recorder remained in the tail section of the plane.

Diving conditions were so difficult that investigators decided it was safer to wait until the plane was out of the water before trying to remove them, said Kitty Higgins, the NTSB member assigned to the scene.

Reviewing video

Investigators also were searching for video of the jet during its glide into the water, and began reviewing Coast Guard surveillance video from along the Hudson that investigators said shows the plane near the time of the crash.

Lorrie Sullenberger and her two daughters emerged from her Danville, Calif., home Friday and called her husband "a pilot's pilot who loves the art of the airplane."

Sullenberger, 57, is a former Air Force fighter pilot who has flown for US Airways for 29 years. He also runs a safety-consulting firm.

Lorrie Sullenberger called talk of her husband being a national hero "a little weird."

The Coast Guard was concerned Friday that fuel still in the plane's tanks would flow into the river. Capt. Bob O'Brien, the commander of Coast Guard sector for New York, said the plane had about 4,000 gallons of fuel, but there was no leaking.

Investigators ordinarily debrief the cockpit crew and the cabin crew, but whatever the information from human sources, they rely most heavily on data, in the form of the cockpit voice recorder, which captures both conversations and mechanical sounds, and the flight-data recorder.

The plane, delivered in 1999, was equipped with an advanced data recorder that is supposed to record information on power levels in each engine, fuel flow, altitude, air speed, angle, position of flight controls such as the ailerons and rudder, and other information.

Thursday's river landing took place almost exactly 27 years after an Air Florida plane bound for Tampa crashed into the Potomac River just after takeoff from Washington National Airport, killing 78 people. Five people on that flight survived.

Information from The Associated Press is included in this report.