A US Airways plane carrying 155 people crashed into New York's Hudson River Thursday, but all on board had a miraculous escape as the freezing waters rose around them, US officials said.
Dozens of frantic passengers clustered on the wings of the plane seeking to stay out of the water as they were swiftly evacuated onto waiting boats. Photographs showed people lined up the length of one wing, the river lapping over their feet as they scrambled into boats.
Wearing bright yellow lifejackets, they were ferried to shore in lifeboats as the A320 aircraft slowly began sinking into the river's grey, murky waters.
The Federal Aviation Authority (FAA) said all on board had been rescued after flight 1549 crashed three minutes after take-off from LaGuardia Airport on its way to Charlotte, North Carolina.
US Airways chairman Doug Parker said all 155 people aboard the passenger plane were accounted for, as the FAA said it appeared to have been an accident possibly caused by a flock of birds.
Passenger Alberto Panero told CNN said he heard a loud bang just after take-off.
"The plane shook a bit and immediately, you could smell smoke or fire and immediately, the plane basically just started turning in another direction," he said.
"It didn't seem like it was out of control, we knew something was going on," he said.
"All of a sudden, the captain came on and said, 'Brace for impact,' and that's when we knew we were going down, into the water. And we just hit and somehow the plane, you know, stayed afloat and we were all able to get on the raft and -- it's just incredible right now that everybody's still alive."
"Right now we don't have any indication right now that this was anything other than an accident," the FAA's Laura Brown told reporters.
"There were reports of a large flock of birds in the area," she said, "but we don't have any indication that this was the cause."
Police helicopters hovered over the stricken plane as four large ferries and several smaller boats gathered in the waters nearby. The Coast Guard dropped life jackets into the water for survivors amid frigid temperatures.
Fire and EMS crews assisted survivors, with one passenger saying there had been elderly people as well as children on board the aircraft.
As night began to fall over the scene, ferry boats cranked up their lights as they sought to guide the empty aircraft towards the shore to aid the investigation.
On a freezing winter's day, temperatures were estimated at 20 degrees Fahrenheit (six below Celsius) outside and 40 degrees Fahrenheit (four degrees Celsius) in the water, making it a race against time to get everyone off the plane before they could suffer from hypothermia.
Panero told CNN by phone the rescue "boats managed to get right up to the door and you could just literally, in effect, jump off into a boat, never had to go into the water."
A fire department spokesman told AFP that at least 106 firefighters had been involved in the rescue and had rushed to the scene within minutes of being to alerted to the crash at 15:31 (2031 GMT).
"I saw what looked to be a small commercial plane flying south making a gradual landing," witness Ben Vonklemperer told CNN.
"I saw it hit the water. It made a big splash," he said. "I did see it hit the water at a very gradual angle. It appeared not to have landing gear engaged," he said.
The Hudson River crash comes 27 years and two days after an Air Florida Boeing 737-222 airliner crashed into the 14th Street bridge in Washington and plunged into the Potomac River immediately after takeoff in a snow storm on January 13, 1982.
The accident killed 78 people, including four motorists on the bridge.
Source & Picture : news.yahoo
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