Media's Mislabeling "Miracle on the Hudson"

 Life in the United States is so full of "warts" that media people hype almost anything. And the "Miracle on the Hudson" ditching of a U.S. Air  flight is one example. This is not to belittle the crew in any manner; they did not ask for the hyping, and they performed as they were trained and expected to perform. Here are the facts:

U.S. Air Flight 1549, an Airbus 320, departed New York's JFK Airport for a flight to Miami, suffered total engine failures at about 3,000 feet altitude during the climbout. Any pilot, including a student pilot with as little as 20 hours experience, would look for a flat surface on which to land. The pilots of U.S. Air had two choices: either land on the only flat surface available, the Hudson River, or crash into buildings in New York City or New Jersey.
 

• Because the captain didn't elect to crash into buildings, and instead, choose to glide the unpowered aircraft onto the surface of the Hudson River, media people called the captain a hero and the flight a miracle.
   
• In lieu of the fact that the term hero is routinely used by U.S. media people for golfers that score low, baseball players that score high, or someone who catches an extra large fish, the ludicrous misuse of the term is understandable!

A "Miracle" of Sorts Did Exist and Went Unaddressed

The key segments of that flight that should have received focus was the luck involved. If the dual-engine failure had occurred a minute or two earlier, when the flat Hudson River was not available, the jet would have been forced to crash into heavily occupied buildings on the takeoff path over New York City. Another luck was the availability of numerous boats that promptly rescued the people on that flight.

This writer is a former airline captain, former Navy aviator and patrol plane commander, and former FAA airline safety inspector.