I was awed to see the skill with which the pilot landed flight 1549 in the Hudson river. Awe has turned to rage against U S Airways after learning that they had experienced an incident two days before in which they told passengers to prepare for a crash landing. It was the same craft and the same route. Passengers heard a series of loud bangs just after take off from LaGuardia.
Steve Jeffrey of Charlotte, North Carolina, told CNN he was flying in first class Tuesday when, about 20 minutes into the flight, "it sounded like the wing was just snapping off.""The red lights started going on. A little pandemonium was going on," Jeffrey recalled."It seemed so loud, like luggage was hitting the side but times a thousand. It startled everyone on the plane," Jeffrey said. "We started looking at each other. The stewardesses started running around. They made an announcement that 'everyone heard the noise, we're going to turn around and head back to LaGuardia and check out what happened.'
Two other passengers remember hearing that there was a malfunction with compressor via an announcement from the pilot.
NTSB spokesman Peter Knudson said as part of its investigation into the Hudson River crash, it will be looking at all maintenance activities, but has no indications of any anomalies or any malfunctions in the aircraft, so far in the investigation.
Following CNN's inquiry, he confirmed that the Airbus 320's maintenance records show "there was an entry in the aircraft's maintenance log that indicates a compressor stall occurred on Jan. 13."
Why would a spokesman deny any indications of anomalies when pilots announced them to the passengers, and the maintenance log clearly points out the stall, but no effort to fix it once it was safely down, and before it went out again!
It seems the very least we can expect of an airline is to repair problems they are aware of! We all assume that they do, and that they look for potential problems. The heroics of January 19th might not have been necessary if U S Airways had done their maintenance.
Passengers report scare on Same Flight 1549 Two Days Prior To
Hudson River Landing
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