kevin_standlee | Thoughts on the Hudson Landing

As it happens, the first I heard of the airplane that had to do a forced landing in the Hudson River was walking around Oakland airport yesterday afternoon. CNN was playing on the TV in the one bar on Terminal 1 as I walked by. Oddly enough, I didn't even think about it during the routine pre-flight safety announcements. On the other hand, I always try to pay attention to the safety briefing, even though I've heard it so many times that I could do it myself. My hope is that if something like the Hudson incident happens to me, I'll react automatically without having to think about it.

Oh, and unless you want an earful, don't call what happened yesterday a "crash" anywhere Lisa can hear you. She'll give you a large earful about how a "crash" implies that the crew did not have control of the plane, whereas "forced landing" or "ditching" means that they did. It's clear from the heroic handling of a plane in a critical failure situation, the pilot had that plane under remarkably good control.