MIRACLE ON THE HUDSON

It was Thursday morning, 15 January 2009. I was in New York City where I travelled to work on a regular basis. It was about 10:30 and snow was coming down pretty hard. I had checked the weather forecast because I had a 7 o'clock flight home to Charlotte, North Carolina, and I didn't want to get stuck. The Weather Channel website said the snow was going to cease and it was going to be a nice day. I went to a meeting with my boss about 11 o'clock and snow was still coming down. “What are you still doing here?” he asked. “You're going to get stuck here. You really ought to get home.” So I rebooked for the 14:45 flight. Seat 16E. When I boarded the plane, I was using my cell phone, sending texts, talking to people right up until they closed the cabin door. We taxied for about thirty minutes, as is usual at LaGuardia Airport, and we took off. Sitting back, I felt the steep climb that pressed me against the seat. I opened the newspaper to read the remnants of The Wall Street Journal that I hadn't finished that morning. There was a muffled bang that I could literally feel. The whole plane shuddered. “What could that possibly be?” I wondered. The plane made a really steep movement to the left. It was all going so fast. I thought maybe the plane was out of control and it was over. But the pilot, who had identified himself earlier as Captain Chesley Sullenberger, seemed to get control back. He stabilized the plane. There was no panic. After the initial gasp from everyone, it was very, very quiet. I was looking around and listening when I heard somebody on the left say, “We must've hit something. I saw shadows.” Then a little later, someone else said, “The left engine is on fire!” Even at this point, I wasn't terribly worried. I figured we had two engines, and if need be we could fly with just one. But as time passed I realized how quiet it was on the plane. There was nothing but the whistling of the wind. It dawned on me that we had no power! We were literally gliding and we weren't very high. That's when I sat bolt upright and grabbed my head. I felt a cold fear like nothing I had ever experienced. I prayed intensely. I repeated, “Please God, help us. Please God, forgive me,” over and over again. Nothing coherent. There were just too many thoughts going through my head. Yet I still had hope. If they could at least get one engine going… We just needed some power to get back to LaGuardia. We'd only been up for three minutes; certainly we could turn around and make a safe landing. That hope went out the window when I realized we were getting lower and lower, following the river. When that realization set in - sheer terror! I realized the likelihood of dying on this plane. There was nowhere, no one to turn to but God. I prayed intensely. I was there with Him. It was the closest I had ever felt to Him. I didn't bargain: “If You save us, I will…” Instead I prayed for my family, my children, my wife. Shortly thereafter, Captain Sullenberger's voice came over the intercom. “This is the captain. Brace for impact.” There was nothing in those words for me but death and pain. The cold, hard reality hit me, and there was nothing I could do about it. I was strapped in my seat, com-pletely and utterly powerless. In the midst of that utter hopelessness, I was thinking about the future, as crazy as that might sound. What was death going to be like? Was it going to be just complete darkness? Or a bright light? Perfect clarity? Joy? What was it going to be like in the presence of God? I believe God gives us all hope even in dire moments. It was such a blessing to have that sense of hope and that sense of salvation. I pulled out my Blackberry. I wanted to get a message to my children… to give them some-thing to carry with them through their lives, some sort of closure. I was trying to do that as I looked out the window, watching the water come close, faster and faster. I put the Blackberry down, closed my eyes and pleaded, “God, please let me see my children agin.” Then, “God, this is going to hurt so bad.” I was terrified, not necessarily of death and what comes after that, but I was really worried about the pain. We hit the water. The Blackberry came up and hit me right on the bridge of my nose, just about knocking me out. And we came to a stop. I immediately knew we were okay. The impact was not terribly traumatic. I knew the plane was intact and not broken up. No one was going to be severely injured. I made my way to the aisle, and the emergency doors were open. I saw a beautiful, clear blue day, sunlight streaming in. It was the most wonderful feeling I have ever felt! Symbolic it seemed like it was a new day, a new life. A new beginning! I filed out the doorway to step onto the wing, and turned back around to get a lifejacket. No one had announced that we were going to make a water landing and to remember our lifejackets underneath the seat cushion. Of course all the cushions by the exit row had been stripped away and I found none. I did absolutely nothing right. I did everything wrong, but I still came out of this. If I had gotten out there on the wing, and the wing was sinking, and the ferries were not there, I would have drowned because hypothermia would have overtaken me in ten minutes. Be that as it may, I stepped out on the wing without a lifejacket. I already saw the ferry coming and it was like a dream to me. So many things went wrong. But so many things went right. An amazing turn of events! After that day, I got at least a dozen e-mails of the drawing of the plane with God's Hands lowering it down - “What Really Happened on the Hudson River.” I truly believe that! Certainly for me, I came much closer to God that day. It was probably the only time that I've been intimately, truly wholly there and one with Him. [From: Chicken Soup for the Soul: A Book of Miracles, J Canfield, MV Hansen, & L Thieman, 2010]. “In hindsight, I think something remarkable did happen that day.” - Captain Chesley “Sully” Sullen-berger III. Chesley Burnett "Sully" Sullen-berger, III (born 23 January, 1951) is a retired airline captain, aviation safety expert and accident investigator, best-selling author, speaker and consultant. He was hailed as a national hero in the United States when he successfully executed an emergency water landing of US Airways Flight 1549 in the Hudson River off Manhattan, New York City, after the aircraft was disabled by striking a flock of Canada geese during its initial climb out of LaGuardia Airport on 15 January 2009. All of the 155 passengers and crew aboard the aircraft survived. http://www.wikipedia.org *** Mark Hood, a medical equipment salesman from Charlotte, said staring down death - and having death blink - has been "a rebirth." "I view the world differently now. When I came out of the door of that plane and took that first breath of cold, clear air, it was a new beginning. The touch of my wife, hugging my kids - all new," he said. Hood, already a man of strong faith, has become more openly religious - and more open in general, he said. "I've always been a very closed person emotionally," said Hood, 49, a Marine veteran of Operation Desert Storm who now regularly speaks to church groups about what happened. "The nice part of the experience is I was able to open up." http://www.nydailynews.com