Today in 2009, what’s known as the “Miracle On The Hudson”: an airplane in distress makes an emergency landing on a river and everyone on board survives.
And this story has quite a postscript for all you book and library lovers out there.
But first let’s go over the main part: US Airways Flight 1549 was taking off from La Guardia Airport in New York.
About a minute or so into the flight, a disaster: a flock of Canada geese flew into the plane, cutting the power to both engines.
Captain Chesley Sullenberger III realized that his plane wasn’t going to make it back to La Guardia, and, after talking with air traffic control, there wasn’t time to get to any other nearby airport either.
They were going to land in the Hudson River.
He told the passengers, “This is the captain. Brace for impact.”
Then he and First Officer Jeff Skiles got the plane in position for as safe a water landing as possible.
I don’t imagine there’s an easy way to put a plane that big onto a body of water: several passengers got hurt as the plane hit the water, and others would struggle with the trauma of living through a plane crash afterward.
But every single person on board survived, and the country hailed the skill and character of the man known as Captain Sully.
While all the people survived, some of the stuff on board did end up stuck on the plane in the river, including Sullenberger’s own luggage.
In that luggage was a book he’d checked out from the library in his hometown in California.
Ironically, it was a book about how to create a workplace culture that emphasizes safety.
In the midst of all this national attention, the captain called the library and explained that the book was stuck in a cargo hold in a plane in the Hudson River, and could he have a waiver of the late fees?
Not only did the library waive all the fees, they even bought a new copy of the book in his honor.
Of course, by that point Sullenberger didn’t need to check one out: as a thank you gift, the mayor of New York got the captain his own copy.
Timothy Fabrizio is a car guy from Long Island who just outdid himself.
His dad had always wanted a certain kind of Rolls Royce convertible, so Fabrizio got him one… and after doing some research, he found out the previous owner was none other than Tupac Shakur.
So did the dad have “Ambitionz Az A Ridah”?
Library lets late fees fly for Hudson pilot (NBC News)
Long Island Man Buys Rolls-Royce Corniche for His Dad. It Turned Out To Be Tupac’s (The Drive)
