Captain Sully: Aircraft Emergency Landings | Aircrash Confidential Ep 4

Emergency landings can end in disaster or become aviation legend.

On January 15th, 2009, US Airways Flight 1549 and Captain Sully takes off from La Guarda airport in New York. Weather conditions are perfect for a smooth flight and the 155 passengers and crew expect nothing more than an uneventful two-hour journey to Charlotte in North Carolina. But within minutes of take-off, the plane has barely reached 3000 feet when it collides with a flock of Canadian geese and the plane's twin engines fail. The airbus begins to drop at 18 feet per second and Captain Sully has just seconds to react. After assessing his limited options, he decides the Hudson River is the only viable location to make an emergency landing. Against the odds, Captain Sully holds his nerve and executes a near text book landing on the Hudson, keeping the plane in one piece and everybody on board alive. He is heralded a national hero and the incident goes down in aviation history as a 'miracle'.

In August 2001, Air Transat Flight 236 is flying from Toronto to Portugal when a fuel leak causes the plane to lose all power while over the middle of the Atlantic Ocean. Hundreds of miles from land, captain Robert Piche glides the plane towards the Azores archipelago praying they will make it in time. Just when the crew think they’ll have to ditch the craft in the ocean, they catch sight of Lajes Island and prepare to land without power. Nineteen minutes after running out of fuel, the plane touches down hard, bouncing several times but eventually comes to a stop just 700 meters from the threshold of the runway, blowing eight tyres in the process. Miraculously, everyone survives with minimal injuries and Captain Piche breaks records for the longest glide of a commercial craft in history.

In November 1996 Ethiopian Airlines Flight 961 is en route from Addis Ababa to Nairobi when three hijackers storm the cockpit claiming to have a bomb they will detonate if the crew doesn't satisfy their demands. The hijackers want to seek asylum in Australia and order the pilot to fly them there, having read in the flight magazine that with a full tank the plane’s maximum flying time is eleven hours. Although Captain Leul Abate explains they only have enough fuel on board for the planned flight to Nairobi, the hijackers don't believe it and make him keep flying. When the plane eventually runs out of fuel and loses engine power, the hijackers begin to fight the captain for the controls. Although Captain Abate tries to safely ditch the aircraft in shallow waters off the northern end of Grande Comoros island, the hijacker's disturbance means the left engine and wingtip strikes the water first. The engine then acts as a scoop and strikes a coral reef, slowing that side of the aircraft quickly and causing the Boeing 767 to suddenly tilt left. The rest of the aircraft then enters the water unevenly, causing it to break apart and tragically, 125 on board are fatally injured.