Speaker 1: Welcome to brain Stuff, a production of iHeart Radio, Hey
Speaker 1: brain Stuff, Lauren Vogel bomb here. It's January two thousand nine.
Speaker 1: The US Airways Flight fifty nine is being boarded at
Speaker 1: New York City's LaGuardia Airport. If all goes as planned,
Speaker 1: the plane will touch down in Charlotte, North Carolina, later
Speaker 1: that evening. All does not go as planned. It turned
Speaker 1: out okay, but it was harrowing at PM Eastern Standard time.
Speaker 1: The aircraft, now laden with a hundred and fifty passengers
Speaker 1: and five crew members, takes off. Within minutes, disaster strikes.
Speaker 1: The plane is unexpectedly bombarded by a flock of Canada geese,
Speaker 1: causing both engines to shut down. Feet that's eight fifty
Speaker 1: above one of the world's biggest cities. San's engines, the
Speaker 1: airliner loses almost all of its thrust. This is a
Speaker 1: serious problem because thrust is the physical force that moves
Speaker 1: flying planes in the direction of motion. Unable to restart
Speaker 1: the engines, Captain Chelsea Sellenberger nickname Sully, and First Officer
Speaker 1: Jeffrey Skiles have to act fast. Time is running short
Speaker 1: and they're losing altitude. If you were around and tuned
Speaker 1: into the news that winter in two thousand nine. You
Speaker 1: probably remember the amazing feet the pilots pulled off. After
Speaker 1: considering detours to LaGuardia and an airport in New Jersey,
Speaker 1: Sellenberger and Skiles made an emergency landing on the frigid
Speaker 1: Hudson River. Although some passengers did have serious injuries, everyone
Speaker 1: aboard that plane lived to tell the tale. New York
Speaker 1: Governor David Patterson called it a miracle on the Hudson.
Speaker 1: The landing was both dramatic and unusual, but this wasn't
Speaker 1: the first time passing birds made trouble for a large aircraft.
Speaker 1: When unfortunate goals or geese gets sucked into a plane's
Speaker 1: engine or engines, they can do serious damage to machinery.
Speaker 1: These so called bird strikes are the most common cause
Speaker 1: of dual engine failure on two engine airplanes like the
Speaker 1: one that Selinberger was flying. Since the nineteen forties, some
Speaker 1: airports have used falconers to help scare unwanted birds off
Speaker 1: of their premises. The mere sight of a trained hawker
Speaker 1: falcon can repel other avian species from the area, but
Speaker 1: other accidents can happen too. Maybe there's ice forming in
Speaker 1: the carburetor, or perhaps the vehicle just doesn't have enough fuel. Three,
Speaker 1: A perfect storm of technical issues and unit conversion mistakes
Speaker 1: left an air Canada bowing seven sixty seven without fuel
Speaker 1: some forty feet that's twelve thousand, five hundred meters over
Speaker 1: central Canada. Before long, it lost power to both engines.
Speaker 1: After descending at a rate of feet that's seven hundred
Speaker 1: and sixty per minute, the pilots were able to glide
Speaker 1: their bowing all the way to a safe, albeit bumpy
Speaker 1: landing on a race car track. The pilots were hailed
Speaker 1: here and the airplane was dubbed the Gimli Glider after
Speaker 1: the town where it landed. Essentially, any plane can glide
Speaker 1: if the need arises, and in situations where all the
Speaker 1: engines have failed, the pilots have to expect the plane
Speaker 1: to do some gliding without the thrust those engines are
Speaker 1: built to provide. The plane can't help but lose altitude.
Speaker 1: But how far can a plane glide when it's not
Speaker 1: designed to be a glider. Aircrafts whose engines conk out
Speaker 1: at higher elevations can glide for longer periods of time.
Speaker 1: This is one of the reasons why Selinberger and Skiles
Speaker 1: Hudson River landing was so impressive they had to glide
Speaker 1: their way to safety in a matter of minutes from
Speaker 1: a pretty low altitude. Everything happened very fast on US
Speaker 1: Airways flight. The plane hit the birds within two minutes
Speaker 1: of taking off, and just three minutes later the plane
Speaker 1: was in the Hudson River. Obviously, planes come in all
Speaker 1: shapes and sizes, so you're flying one, it's important to
Speaker 1: know your vehicle's best glide speed. In a nutshell, this
Speaker 1: is the speed that will let your airplane travel the
Speaker 1: farthest distance while sacrificing the least amount of altitude. A
Speaker 1: related concept is the minimum sinc speed, or the pace
Speaker 1: of travel that will maximize how much time you can
Speaker 1: spend gliding. Depending on your situation, you may choose to
Speaker 1: prioritize time over distance or vice versa. Writing for USA Today,
Speaker 1: in veteran pilot John Cox stated that a jetliner could
Speaker 1: probably be expected to glide for around a hundred miles
Speaker 1: that's a hundred and sixty KOs if all its engines
Speaker 1: failed thirty thousand feet that's about nine thousand meters above
Speaker 1: ground level. That's around the distance between Los Angeles and
Speaker 1: Palm Springs or New York City in Atlantic City, though
Speaker 1: he noted quote having all engines quit in a modern
Speaker 1: airplane is extremely rare, which is reassuring. Today's episode is
Speaker 1: based on the article how far can a plain glide
Speaker 1: if its engines fail? On how stuff works dot Com
Speaker 1: written by Mark Mancini. Brain Stuff is production of I
Speaker 1: Heart Radio in partnership with how stuff works dot Com
Speaker 1: and is produced by Tyler Klang. Four more podcasts my
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