the left and was at already a high degree bank, probably around 30 to 35 degrees. all i did was start flying it like i would in the air, and it rolled out, level. and the minute it rolled out level i sort of popped to the surface just like a cork. not all have survived the impact. but those who do escape into shark-infested waters. it s an hour and a half before rescue helicopters begin arriving on the scene. because the plane s p.a. system was not working, the pilot never had a chance to verbally warn passengers to put on their seat belts or brace for impact. 40 of 63 survived. according to the ntsb, fewer lives would have been lost had passengers received adequate warning. of the 23 who don t make it, two are children. to this day it s difficult for the pilot to come to terms with the loss of life. well, the story itself, not
york. flight 980 s destination, the caribbean. juliana airport in st. maarten. pilots say it s one of the trickiest places in the world to land a plane, especially a 747, as this video shows. the postage stamp-size runway is perilously close to a beach. people can practically reach out and touch jets as they re coming down just a few feet over their heads. if the airplane were to land short and end up on that beach full of people, it would be catastrophic. to be that close to that large an airplane moving that quickly, i guess the term awesome comes to mind. aside from physical limitations of the runway, there s also a mountain range blanketing one side of the airport. and if all that isn t enough, there s that unpredictable caribbean weather. all those factors combined are about to turn a routine flight into a nightmare. for the first time after four decades the pilot of that
air traffic controllers at times using the wrong flight number, try and guide the plane to an airport. cactus 1529. if we can get you, do you want to try to land runway 137? we re unable. we may end up in the hudson. 1549, it s going to be less traffic to runway 31. unable. just north of the george washington bridge, the captain aligns the airbus a-320 with the hudson river. he passes the bridge just to the east and continues due south. i looked out the window, saw we were actually below the rooftops of manhattan. i said, this is not a good sign, we re not making newark. did sully look at you and say we re going in the water, or did you both come to the realization that s where this was going? i think it was more it was just the only option we had. there was no we weren t going to make it to an airport. and that was the only open spot that we saw. if a pilot is forced to ditch, the faa has recommendations for how to do
passengers above, telling them to remove their shoes, tighten their seat belts, put out their cigarettes, and put on their life vests. the pilot has the crew move all passengers to seats in the front of the cabin. he was probably worried that the tail would break off. and if that was the case, then he wanted to make sure we were all safe in the front of the plane. there s a ten-minute warning. a one-minute warning. and then three simple words from the pilot. this is it. the plane splashes down at a speed of 103 miles per hour. the impact is brutal. the plane whips around, its tail snapping off, just as the captain had predicted. but neither the film nor the graphic animation can fully express what the people who were on that plane experienced at that moment. when it hit the water, it jarred me apart from my mother,
you are going to make it. you are going to make it. the 767 is traveling at about 200 miles an hour. far too fast to ditch safely. but there s an even more serious problem. as this incredible video shows, the wings are not level. a dangerous angle for ditching. watch as the left wing drags along the water with disastrous results. they catch the left wing first. you ll actually see it come off. he s fighting to control the airplane. the engine hits. it s shedding parts and then he finally it actually pretty well rolls over as it sheds both wings. if he d been able to hit a little more wings level, the chances of survival would have gone up. the biggest problem with this ditching is the fact that they catch that left wing. one can only imagine the pandemonium inside the airplane. survivors report feeling a series of increasingly violent impacts. the plane first hit the water