Highest Duty_ My Search for What Really Matters - Chesley B. Sullenberger [76]
I responded: “Maintain one five thousand, Cactus fifteen forty-nine.”
As we climbed through 1,000 feet, Jeff commanded: “And flaps one, please.” I repeated, “Flaps one,” as I moved the flap lever from the 2 to the 1 detent while Jeff lowered the nose, shallowing our climb as we accelerated.
Next, Jeff said, “Flaps up, please, after takeoff checklist.”
I responded, “Flaps up.” I retracted the flaps, verified that all the items on the after takeoff checklist were done, and announced, “After takeoff checklist complete.”
The takeoff portion of the flight was now complete, and we were transitioning to the climb portion of the flight by retracting the flaps. The flaps were needed for takeoff, but for our climb would only produce unnecessary drag. The airplane was in a clean configuration—with landing gear and flaps retracted—and we began our acceleration to 250 knots.
We continued climbing and accelerating. That incredible New York skyline was coming into view. Everything so far was completely routine.
13
SUDDEN, COMPLETE, SYMMETRICAL
WE’D BEEN IN the air for about ninety-five seconds, and had not yet risen to three thousand feet when I saw them.
“Birds!” I said to Jeff.
The birds were ahead of us, in what probably was a V formation. Jeff had noticed them a fraction of a second before I uttered the word, but there was no time for either of us to react. Our airplane was traveling at 3.83 statute miles a minute. That’s 316 feet per second. That means the birds were about a football field away when I first saw them. I barely blinked and they were upon us.
There were many large birds, a dozen or more, and I saw them in outline, with their wings extended straight out horizontally. We were flying so fast compared with the birds that it looked as if they weren’t even moving. I just saw, in an instant, the cylindrical dark outlines of their bodies. I’d later learn they were Canada geese, weighing anywhere from eight to eighteen pounds, with six-foot wingspans, and as is their way, they were flying within sight of one another at perhaps fifty miles an hour.
The cockpit windows on the Airbus A320 are large, and as I looked out the front, I saw the birds were everywhere, filling the windscreen. It was not unlike Alfred Hitchcock’s The Birds. I thought later that I should have tried to duck in case the windshield cracked from the birds’ impact, but there was no time.
The cockpit voice recorder captured my interchange with Jeff and the sounds in the cockpit:
Sullenberger (3:27 and 10.4 seconds): “Birds!”
Skiles (3:27:11): “Whoa!”
(3:27.11.4): Sound of thumps/thuds, followed by shuddering sound.
Skiles (3:27:12): “Oh, shit!”
Sullenberger (3:27:13): “Oh, yeah.”
(3:27:13): Sound similar to decrease in engine noise/frequency begins.
Skiles (3:27:14): “Uh-oh.”
As the birds hit the plane, it felt like we were being pelted by heavy rain or hail. It sounded like the worst thunderstorm I’d ever heard back in Texas. The birds struck many places on the aircraft below the level of the windshield, including the nose, wings, and engines. The thuds came in rapid succession, almost simultaneously but a fraction of a fraction of a second apart.
I would later learn that Sheila and Donna, still strapped into their seats for takeoff, also felt the thuds.
“What was that?” Sheila asked.
“Might be a bird strike,” Donna told her.
I had hit birds three or four times in my career and they had never even dented the plane. We’d make note of the strike in our maintenance logbook, make sure every piece of the airplane was unscathed, and that was it. I’ve long been aware of the risks, of course. About eighty-two thousand wildlife strikes—including deer, coyotes, alligators, and vultures—have been reported to the FAA since 1990. Researchers estimate that this is just a fifth of the actual number, since the great majority of strikes are never formally reported by pilots. Studies have shown that about