US Airways Flight 1549

Added: 2026-06-02

[00:00:00]January 15th, 2009.

[00:00:03]3:27 p.m. US Airways flight 1549, an Airbus A320, climbs out of LaGuardia Airport in New York. At 2,800 ft, the plane hits a flock of Canada geese. Both engines fail instantly, silently.

[00:00:21]Captain Chesley Sully Sullenberger now has 208 seconds to live. Inside the cockpit, the sound of the engines disappears. The cockpit gets quiet.

[00:00:32]First officer Jeff Skiles runs the engine restart checklist. And at 15:27:33, Sully keys the mic. "Cactus 1549, hit birds. We've lost thrust on both engines. We're turning back towards LaGuardia." He didn't say mayday, not yet. He was still trying to solve the problem, still trying to make it back to the runway. Controller Patrick Harten responds immediately. "Turn left, heading 270." "Unable," Sully replies.

[00:00:57]Now the options shrink. LaGuardia is gone. Teterboro is ahead, but the plane isn't making it. At 15:28:10, Sully makes the call. "Mayday, mayday, mayday. We can't do it. We're going to be in the Hudson." That's it. Three words. From that moment, every controller in New York stops what they're doing. The Coast Guard is alerted. Ferries turn around. Fire trucks roll. Sully didn't say mayday when the engines failed. He said it when he knew he couldn't fix it. That's the decision point. Mayday isn't the start of the emergency. It's the moment you admit the emergency has already won unless someone helps you out.