June 20, 2009

Hundreds of birds around New York’s two airports have been culled in a bid to prevent another ‘Hero of the Hudson’ crash landing.

All 155 people on board survived when jet made crash landing after birdstrike

Officials say about 800 Canada geese were trapped and killed to reduce the chances of another birdstrike that led to US Airways Flight 1549 landing in the nearby Hudson River this year.

They said the birds have been culled from 15 sites within a five-miles radius of LaGuardia and Kennedy airports.

US Department of Agriculture spokeswoman Carol Bannerman said agency biologists are carrying out the cull.

She said as many as 2,000 geese will be killed in the next few weeks.

The US Airways jet had just taken off from LaGuardia on January 15 and was over the Bronx when it ran into a flock of geese and lost both engines.

Pilot Chesley Sullenberger was hailed a national hero after he managed to safely land the plane in the Hudson, saving the lives of all 155 people on board.

He told of the “shocking” thumping sound as birds hit his engines, crippling the plane at 3,000ft over America’s most populous city.

The 58-year-old said the geese were “filling the entire windscreen, from top to bottom, left to right… You could hear them… loud thumps”.

“It felt like the airplane being pelted by heavy rain or hail,” he said.

The former US Air Force fighter pilot realised the damage “when I felt, heard and smelled the evidence of them going into the engines”.

“I smelled…a burned bird smell being brought from the engine area into the conditioning system of the airplane,” he said.

Mr Sullenberger said the moment he knew the plane had been crippled was “the worst sickening, pit-of-your-stomach, falling-through-the-floor feeling I’ve ever felt in my life”.

He then told how he had focused on landing and did not think about the passengers.

“I knew I had to find a way out of this box I found myself in. I had a job to do,” he said.

Drawing on his 42-year flying experience, Mr Sullenberger coolly told air traffic controllers his plan and made a perfect landing on the river.