Listen to the recordings

His quick thinking under pressure has already been hailed across the world. Now transcripts of the final communication from the aircraft that crashed on the Hudson reveal how its pilot calmly radioed air traffic controllers that he was planning to land in the river next to Manhattan.

The audio recordings from the stricken jet, released yesterday, reveal that air traffic control met the news with disbelief. “We’re going to be in the Hudson,” Captain Chesley “Sully” Sullenberger told the tower in a deadpan voice. “I’m sorry, say again,” an air traffic controller responded. There was no answer from the aircraft.

Captain Sullenberger’s splash landing saved the lives of all 155 people aboard US Airway Flight 1549 from New York’s LaGuardia airport to Charlotte, North Carolina, on January 15. The former US Air Force pilot walked through the aircraft twice to check that all passengers had got out before he abandoned the aircraft, in a feat dubbed “The Miracle on the Hudson”.

Investigators have confirmed that birds struck both engines of the Airbus A320 just after takeoff. The National Transportation Safety Board has released a photograph of a grey-black feather recovered from the jet’s left engine after it was lifted from the river-bed. The feather bolstered the theory that the aircraft was hit by a flock of Canada geese. Organic remains from inside both engines and the wings are being sent to the Smithsonian Institution in Washington for analysis before a final report is made.

The radio recordings show that Captain Sullenberger immediately reported that a bird strike had taken out both aircraft engines. Less than two minutes after reporting that he had reached 5,000 feet, Captain Sullenberger radioed the tower: “Ah this is, uh, cactus fifteen thirty nine hit birds we lost thrust in both engines we’re turning back towards LaGuardia.”

The tower halted flights to prepare for an emergency landing. Then Captain Sullenberger reports that he cannot make it back to the airport. “We’re unable. We may end up in the Hudson,” he said. “I’m not sure we can make any runway. Oh, what’s over to our right. Anything in New Jersey. Maybe Teterboro,” he added.

Air traffic controllers tell Captain Sullenberger how to get to Teterboro airport in New Jersey, and put it on alert. Captain Sullenberger announced: “We can’t do it.” He then breaks the news that he plans to ditch in the Hudson River.

Captain Sullenberger, in his first public comments since the splash-landing, has described it as surreal. In an interview with the ESPN sports network, he said that while he was gliding the aircraft into the river he felt “calm on the outside, turmoil on the inside”.

“It was very quiet as we worked, my co-pilot and I. We were a team. But to have zero thrust coming out of those engines was shocking — the silence,” he said. Captain Sullenberger is to give a more detailed account of his ordeal in an television interview with CBS’s 60 Minutes on Sunday.

His wife, Lori, says that the couple have been opening letters from wellwishers every night that are so emotional — “it allows both of us to express emotion about it all. We both sit there and cry.”

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