Captain Chesley Sullenberger liked to reassure people by saying that few pilots ever faced life-or-death incidents in a lifetime of flying. On Thursday such a moment came for him and he performed a feat of old-style airmanship that rightly won homage from pilots around the world.

The emergency landing that Mr Sullenberger achieved, guiding a big, all-electronic airliner down so softly on water that it stayed in one piece, was no small feat. All pilots train for ditching and other “off-airport landings”, but only a few times before has it been achieved so smoothly with big aircraft.

Although passengers are used to briefings on the “unlikely event of water landings”, big planes are prone to break up and sink when they hit the water. Mr Sullenberger and Jeff Skiles, his First Officer, had about three minutes to save their aircraft when they flew into a flock of geese as the US Airlines Airbus A320 was climbing over the Bronx at 3,200 ft.

While retracting flaps and taking air traffic vectors, the pair would have felt a big jolt and violent vibrations as the shredded birds choked the fast-spin-ning turbofan blades. Some may have hit the windshield. If Mr Skiles was flying the leg, Captain Sullenberger would have taken command to make a chain of critical decisions that ended up saving the lives of all on board.

Pilots follow a cardinal rule known as “first, fly the aeroplane”. They would have lowered the nose to maintain flying speed, using the small electronic side-sticks that replaced the old control column on Airbuses. With alerts flashing they would have assessed the dying engines and run fast through check lists, shutting down fuel supplies and establishing a glide. With no power and losing about 1,200 ft every minute, they were certain to be on the earth in about two minutes. It helped that Captain Sullenberger is also a gliding instructor.

The area was heavily built up, so their options were to head for one of the nearby airports, the New Jersey Turnpike - or water. Reporting their predicament to area control, they aimed for Teterboro, a small business airport on the New Jersey side of the Hudson, which they could see. Using old-fashioned stick-and-rudder skills, near George Washington bridge, Captain Sullenberger judged that he could not make the approach with certainty and decided to use the Hudson. Water has its dangers, but nothing like the obstacles that they would hit on land.

Losing their last few hundred feet, they descended at about 140 knots (160mph). Knowing that wheels are a hindrance when ditching, the captain extended the wing flaps to allow the aircraft to slow down to the maximum but kept up the undercarriage.

A key to their survival was retaining the electrical power that runs the electronics and hydraulically powered control surfaces. The A320, the world’s “first fly-by-wire” airliner, has no mechanical link between pilot and the wings and tail. They would have been running on the batteries and an emergency generator. Nearing touchdown, both pilots would have put their hands up to the overhead panel to press the “ditch button”, a command that seals the vents and intakes to make the aircraft more watertight.

The pilot would have held off as long as possible. With its nose pitched up, the aircraft touched tail-first at about 130mph. The idea is to avoid catching one of the underwing engines too fast and sending the plane into a cartwheel. In the event, one, and possibly both, of the turbines sheared off, as they are designed to.

There was much praise yesterday for all the crew and also for the strength of Airbus airliners.

But the hero of the day was 19,000-hour “Sully” Sullenberger.

Charles Bremner has been a licensed pilot for 25 years and has flown regularly around the New York area.

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