Plane down in Hudson River

It's been reported that a single engine plane went down in the Hudson River
today at around 11:51am EST near the Yonkers Pier. Two people were reported
rescued.

Two people were reported rescued.

That's good to hear. :^)

Good Rescue video of this on cnn.com


ngmonk" wrote:

Two people were reported rescued.

That's good to hear. :^)

I used to teach at White Plains and our practice area was over the
Hudson between Sing Sing and Indian Point. I can' t imagine how cold
that water must have felt after exiting a warm, comfy (and dry) plane.
Brrrrrr. Knowing the area though, I'm surprised they couldn't have
glided to shore, as that part of the river is not very wide at all.
Unless, of course, they were at low level.

That area is getting to be a popular spot for ditching aircraft. IIRC
an SR-22 went in last summer up by the nuke plant.

wrote:

Knowing the area though, I'm surprised they couldn't have
glided to shore, as that part of the river is not very wide at all.

I'm sure they could have. There's no place to land there on the Yonkers side
except the river.

George Patterson
Coffee is only a way of stealing time that should by rights belong to
your slightly older self.

No shore to speak of - palisades in New Jersey, buildings in New York.

wrote in message
ups.com...
I used to teach at White Plains and our practice area was over the
Hudson between Sing Sing and Indian Point. I can' t imagine how cold
that water must have felt after exiting a warm, comfy (and dry) plane.
Brrrrrr. Knowing the area though, I'm surprised they couldn't have
glided to shore, as that part of the river is not very wide at all.
Unless, of course, they were at low level.

That area is getting to be a popular spot for ditching aircraft. IIRC
an SR-22 went in last summer up by the nuke plant.

I'm surprised they couldn't have
glided to shore

The NY Times reported that they glided engineless for eleven minutes.
They'd have to be a balloon, or at umpty thousand feet. Of course, the
Times may have gotten it wrong.

Jose
--
You can choose whom to befriend, but you cannot choose whom to love.
for Email, make the obvious change in the address.

In article , Jose wrote:
I'm surprised they couldn't have
glided to shore

The NY Times reported that they glided engineless for eleven minutes.
They'd have to be a balloon, or at umpty thousand feet. Of course, the
Times may have gotten it wrong.

Apparently, N2759M was a PA28-161 Warrior:

http://registry.faa.gov/aircraftinqu...cmndfind .y=0

I don't know the Warriors at all, but I believe the 161 has a best glide
speed of 73 knots.

Not sure what the glide ratio is, but probably around 10:1 or so?

Yeah, thought the same thing when I heard about a 11 minute glide. ("Is
the newspaper sure that was really a powered plane, and not a glider?")

At this point, I'm just guessing this was a misreporting of some kind.
1.1 minute glide instead of 11, maybe?

I don't know how high they were, but I really can't imagine them being
VFR above or below 1500 ft, since they indicated this was a short trip
done through a VFR corridor.

-Dan

Jose wrote in news:WGHuf.4910$fO5.4025
@newssvr33.news.prodigy.com:

I'm surprised they couldn't have
glided to shore

The NY Times reported that they glided engineless for eleven minutes.
They'd have to be a balloon, or at umpty thousand feet. Of course, the
Times may have gotten it wrong.

Jose

I don't think the NY Times story is accurate.

http://www4.passur.com/hpn.html

Set the date to January 2, 2006 @ 11:46 pm. Set the Map Range to 40 miles.
You'll see a plane turning around over the Hudson at about the Palisades.
Click on it - it is a General Aviation plane that will flop up and down
between 600-900ft until about 11:51pm when it starts consistently going
down to about 400' and then disappears... Of course, it's not completely
clear when the engine went out, and how long it manuevered after it
disappeared off the radar, but I think 11 minutes might be inaccurate.

Even the NY Times is not immune.

In article ,
Jose wrote:
I'm surprised they couldn't have
glided to shore

The NY Times reported that they glided engineless for eleven minutes.
They'd have to be a balloon, or at umpty thousand feet. Of course, the
Times may have gotten it wrong.

The Times also described the plane as "two-seat, single-engine Piper
Arrow 28, also known as a Piper Warrior". Elsewhere in the article,
they call it a "Piper Arrow". The FAA database says N2759M is a
PA-28-161. I can only guess that the reporter saw "PA" and figured
that must stand for "Piper Arrow".