Tech Topics - Spring 2009 - (Page 20) BURDELL & FRIENDS Surviving Flight 1549 AP IMAGES/STEVEN DAY Charles Spiggle recounts the terrifying and miraculous crash landing By Van Jensen On the afternoon of Jan. 15, Charles Spiggle, ME 92, was flying out of La Guardia Airport in New York to his home in Charlotte, N.C., on US Airways Flight 1549 when the plane apparently struck a flock of geese, disabling its two engines. The pilot, Chesley B. Sullenberger III, made an emergency landing in the Hudson River, and miraculously all 155 passengers and crew survived. Spiggle, who previously has not spoken with the media about the incident, recounted his experience aboard the flight to TECH TOPICS. “The only thing the pilot said was, “Brace for impact.” And the flight attendants started shouting, “Brace! Brace! Brace!” try to make. It leaves in the afternoon, so you can get home at a reasonable hour. was making a lot of noise, but it wasn’t until we leveled off and the plane got low and people said, “We’re going to land in the water.” And the pilot said, “Brace for impact.” What happened inside the plane after the engines quit? As soon as I heard it, I knew it was bad. You could hear a murmur among the passengers, but there was no screaming or yelling. We didn’t lose altitude rapidly. We just leveled off and started coming down a little bit. It felt like it was relatively under control. My first thought was everybody that flies a lot has a little trepidation, especially early in the flight. And I thought, after all the times of thinking this could happen, it’s going to happen. I just thought it would be an emergency landing, but what if the engine blows up as we’re trying to land? How are you doing? I just can’t believe it happened. I had about as good of an experience as you can have in a plane crash. So while it was a weird experience, I’m not having nightmares. I’m an optimist. So it started like any of a thousand trips? Yeah. I got on the plane, I pulled out some work papers, put my briefcase under the seat, read through seven or eight pages. About 45 seconds in, I felt a little drowsy, so I stuck my papers in the seat-back pocket, and just as I was dozing off I heard a loud noise on the left side of the airplane. I, and a lot of other passengers, felt we were just going to make an emergency landing at La Guardia. We thought we still had the right engine — until that last, sharp turn, and people saw the water. The plane was not flying well and the engine How was it that you came to be on the flight? I work for Wachovia in Charlotte in investment banking. We have an office in New York, and a number of our clients are there, so I go back and forth a lot. And I’m on that flight a lot. That’s the flight you 20 How long was it between the moment the engines quit and the realization you were landing in the river? I would have sworn it was 20 or 25 minutes, but friends who’ve read about it told me it was five and a half minutes. But it felt like a lot longer. TechTopics | Spring 2009
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