Covering Commerical Air Crashes

By Andrew Ehinger

   After yesterdays splashdown of USAirways Flight 1549 in the Hudson River I began to think about all the air disasters I've covered as a journalist. This would be the fifth commercial airliner crash that I have experienced as a reporter. Though this one has in my mind a very obvious difference - EVERYONE SURVIVED.

    Survivors and air crashes don't typically go hand in hand so a huge amount of gratitude has to go out to Flight 1549's pilot Chesley Sullenberger for his skill and quick thinking. Unfortunately, the rest of the air disaster stories I have covered haven't turned out that well.

    It was September 8th 1994. I was at my first job as a full time TV reporter at WTAJ-TV in Altoona, PA working the night shift. The flash came across the AP wire a plane had crashed outside the Pittsburgh airport.  My photographer and I immediately grabbed our gear and speed towards Hopewell Township - only about 90 minutes away. I would spend the next 3 days in a K-Mart parking lot covering the horrific crash of USAirways Flight 427.

    The next disaster wouldn't be for another 7 years and the events from that day are still raw in my memory - as they are for many Long Isanders. I watched like many on 9-11 the live video of Tower 1 burning moments after the impact of American Airlines Flight 11, then seeing United Airlines Flight 175 slam into Tower 2.  I was off from work that day.  But because I was in Manhattan that morning, I ran towards the World Trade never knowing what would happen next or how that event would launch a war. 

    The numbness of September 11th hadn't even worn off yet when 2 months later on November 12th 2001, American Airlines flight 587 crashed in Belle Harbor, Queens. Again, I was in Manhattan and could see the plume of smoke rising above Queens. I met a photographer from News 12 in Queens and I would spend the next couple days reporting on this crash.

    In all of these past crashes there were no survivors, which is what makes yesterday's ditching in the Hudson so amazing. New York Governor David Patterson summed it up  best last night when he said "We've had a miracle on 34th street -- now we have a miracle on the Hudson."

The image of all the passengers standing on the wing, floating on the emergency slides waiting for ferries and other boats to pick them up is just so incredible. It's just something I wouldn't have expected but was so pleased to help report.   It is inspiring to know that an air disaster can turn into a miracle.