The dramatic ditching of US Airways Flight 1549 in New York’s Hudson River on January 15 has highlighted the critical role that water transit can play in emergency response situations.
Circle Line boats were among the first responders to Flight 1549 just minutes after it landed in the river.
By Francis Cairo
Published: February, 2009
The dramatic ditching of US Airways Flight 1549 in New York’s Hudson River on January 15 has highlighted the critical role that water transit can play in emergency response situations.
The Miracle on the Hudson may not have been so miraculous without the participation of an armada of commercial ferries and water-transit vessels, which actually served as the first responders. According to published timelines of the event, Flight 1549 landed in the river at 3:31 p.m. Remarkably, NYPD officers who had been on patrol in midtown Manhattan boarded a Circle Line ferry boat at the 42nd Street pier just one minute later, at 3:32 p.m. A few minutes after that, the Circle Line boat was receiving passengers who were standing on the wings of the plane, and passenger vessels from New York Waterways had been similarly mobilized.
Officials later noted that no Flight 1549 passenger fell into the river; everyone went straight from the aircraft onto life rafts and the rescue ships. Newsday reported that the Circle Line captain said, They were cheering when we pulled up. There were a lot of scared people. The captain told Newsday that his vessel alone rescued 56 people.
The commuter ferries’ heroic efforts did not go unnoticed. New York Waterways and Circle Line were first on the scene, New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg said. Most people stepped directly from the plane onto a boat or onto the wings and then onto a boat. In a ceremony on January 16, Bloomberg honored, among many others, New York Waterways President Arthur Imperatore, Jr. and Harbormaster Alan Warren, and Circle Line General Manager Andreas Sappok and Boat Captain Mike Duffy.
Although the ferries’ participation in the New York rescue was something of an ad hoc effort, the Bay Area has an administrative body—the Water Emergency Transportation Authority (WETA)—that is tasked with handling transportation in the event of all sorts of emergencies. In creating WETA, Sacramento lawmakers had a broad vision—a ferry system that would increase regional mobility and also provide emergency transportation in the event of a disaster. The result was Senate Bill 976, which, effective January 1, 2008, transformed the old WTA into the new agency and set aside funds to strengthen the Bay Area’s water transit infrastructure.
Of his agency’s emergency response mission, new WETA Executive Director Jon Stanley told Bay Crossings in November 2008: The state bill that established the WETA requires that we identify sources of fuel around the bay and develop additional docking capability in the corridor between San Francisco and the East Bay. We are also developing emergency service contracts with private boat operators to make sure that, in the event of an emergency, we will be able to call upon all of the passenger boats on the Bay. We are also working closely with the U.S. Coast Guard, the Metropolitan Transportation Commission, and the Offices of Emergency Services on both sides of the bay.
