Officials recover black boxes, U.S. Airbus lifted from Hudson

The two recorders, the so-called black boxes from the Airbus A320 jet, are expected to provide investigators with more information about what caused Flight 1549’s two engines to quit shortly after takeoff from La Guardia Airport on Thursday, and about the pilots’ actions that brought the plane down safely.

 

Salvage teams have also lifted the plane from New York's Hudson River, where it had been moored at Nelson A. Rockefeller Park in Battery Park City for two days.Â

 

The operation to lift the US Airways plane was hampered by swirling river currents and icy waters, but finally was completed during the night of Saturday to Sunday.

 

Lifting straps from a huge crane were placed around the submerged plane, which was moored to a Manhattan dock. Because the fuselage was flooded the lifting was conducted slowly, allowing water to drain.

 

All 150 passengers and five crew escaped alive from the plane, which ditched when both engines halted, apparently after birds, possibly geese, were sucked into the turbines minutes into the flight from LaGuardia Airport.

 

Pilot Chesley Sullenberger, whose skillful splash-landing was credited with saving all 155 people aboard, testified that a collision with birds certainly caused the disaster.

 

Security camera film footage released Saturday showed for the first time the moment of impact. Water shoots up as the plane makes a perfectly straight landing; a brilliant piece of handling that experts say prevented a tragic break-up of the plane.