The Hudson Miracle

BANGALORE: The dramatic emergency landing of an Airbus A320 jetliner into New York’s Hudson River in which 155 escaped from the jaws of death will go down in the annals of history as a great miracle.
Bangalore too has had its share of water landings in the past and though such landings did not involve large passenger aircraft, they were no less than miraculous.
Since 2005, about nine crashes have occurred in the Bangalore airspace, five involving water landings.
In four of the five water landings, the passengers and crew had a miraculous escape. Only in once incident were four members onboard a private four-seater Pilactus 68 aircraft killed after crashing into the Gowdanapalya Lake in September 2007.
The first incident was in April 9, 2005, when a two seater Hansa aircraft crashed into a lake near the HAL airport, just a few minutes before Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao arrived at the airport. The pilots, Air Vice-Marshal (Retd) Ajith Lamba, and an M.Tech. student of the Indian Institute of Science espaced with minor injuries.
Later that year in July, two pilots on a Cessna-340 aircraft which was involved in cloud seeding operations crashed into the Jakkur Lake. Both survived, with injuries.
In 2006, a Deccan Aviation helicopter too met a similar fate when the pilots force-landed on the Jakkur lake bed and escaped unhurt. Probes revealed that the crashes had occurred due to technical snags.
Former President of the Aeronautical Society of India Wg.Cdr A E Patrawala says that the reasons why pilots resort to force or crash land on water bodies is because the chances of survival are more.
“The A320 landing into the lake was a copy book flat landing by the pilots. After landing the aircraft floated and there was sufficient time for rescuers to evacuate the passengers. During training, pilots are taught that in the eventuality of a force-landing they should look for a runway or a flat surface. Else, flat-landing in a water body is preferable,” he said.