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Patrick never heard those words, however, because while I was talking, he was making a transmission of his own—to me. Once someone keys his microphone, he can’t hear what’s being said to him on the same frequency. While Patrick was giving me a routine direction—“Cactus fifteen forty-nine, turn left heading two seven zero”—my “Mayday” message was going no farther than our cockpit.

I didn’t know that Patrick hadn’t heard me and that I hadn’t heard him. This is a regular and problematic issue in communications between controllers and pilots. When two people transmit simultaneously, they not only block each other, but they also sometimes prohibit others nearby from hearing certain transmissions. “Anti-blocking” devices have been invented that allow aircraft radios to detect when someone else is transmitting. That way, once a radio senses another transmission, it can prevent your radio from transmitting so you don’t block someone else. We could certainly use such devices or similar technology in our cockpits. All pilots have stories. There have been times when a pilot will bump his radio’s button, and for a few minutes, those of us in planes on the same frequency hear only background noise from that pilot’s cockpit. We can’t hear the controller. It is a potentially hazardous situation that has not been resolved because airlines and other operators have chosen not to adopt anti-blocking technology, and the FAA has not mandated it.

Patrick’s transmission lasted about four seconds, and when he released his transmit button, he heard the rest of my transmission: “…This is, uh, Cactus fifteen thirty-nine. Hit birds. We’ve lost thrust in both engines. We’re turning back towards LaGuardia.”

I had gotten the flight number wrong. Later, when I heard the tape, I detected a higher stress level in my voice. My voice quality was slightly raspy, slightly higher pitched. No one else might have noticed, but I could hear it.

PATRICK, A thirty-four-year-old controller, had worked many thousands of flights in his ten years on the job, and had a reputation for being careful and diligent.

He had assisted a few jets with failures of one engine, though none to the point where the plane had become a glider. He worked to get these flights back to the ground as quickly as possible, and in each case, the planes landed without incident. Like other controllers, he took pride in the fact that he had never failed in his attempts to help a plane in distress get safely to a runway.

In Patrick’s previous emergencies, he had remained calm and acted intelligently.

Once, he had a plane coming in from overseas. There was bad weather that day, and the plane had been held in holding patterns. Eventually, it had enough fuel to last just thirty more minutes. The plane was almost twenty minutes from the airport. If a new weather problem developed, or there was a further traffic delay, the plane could run out of fuel. Knowing there was no margin for error, Patrick had to pull another aircraft from its final approach, and slot in the plane with low fuel. He oversaw the rearranging of a jigsaw puzzle in the sky, and was able to help the plane land without incident.

About fifteen times in his career, Patrick had pilots tell him that their planes had just hit birds. The worst bird strike he had ever handled before Flight 1549 involved a cracked windshield. Patrick had helped that airplane return to LaGuardia safely.

Patrick certainly had his share of experiences with emergencies. But like almost every controller working in the world today, he had never been in a situation where he was guiding a plane that had zero thrust capability.

In the case of Flight 1549, Patrick knew he had to act quickly and decisively. He made an immediate decision to offer us LaGuardia’s runway 13, which was the closest to our current position. At that moment, we were still heading away from LaGuardia and descending rapidly.

He made no comment, of course, about the seriousness of the condition of our plane. He just responded.