A Fictional Diary Entry writen through the voice of doreen welsh who was working on the plain when it crash landed

15^th January 2009

Doreen Welsh

US Airways Flight 1549

We were flying smoothly, safely and on course. That was until we came to a large flock of birds, Canada Geese as we later found out.

Captain Sully (Capt. Chesley B. "Sully" Sullenberger) was calm and collected, him being a former fighter pilot I was sure he was used to the worry of falling out of the sky, or maybe it never dawned on him until it happened.

Anyway the birds got sucked into the engines and they both failed. We heard loud bangs and then the scary silence of no engines that fallowed. We suddenly smelled the odor of unburned fuel in the cabin.

I spoke to Officer Skiles who said that Patrick Harten and Captain Sully were searching for somewhere to land.

Captain Sully must have been under so much presser from the terrified passengers and us, the frantic crew.

We tried to comfort the passengers with “we’ll be alright” and “its okay, Captain Sully is a great pilot,” but it was hard to comfort people when there yelling “I’ve got kids at home” and “I never told my mother I love her” especially when all the same thoughts are whizzing around in your head too.

The time was 3:27:36, using the call sign "Cactus 1539 "; Captain Sully told air control "Hit birds. We've lost thrust on both engines. We're turning back towards LaGuardia.” and a few moments later he also said "We can't do it", and that "We're going to be in the Hudson" making clear his intention to bring the plane down on the Hudson River due to a lack of altitude.

I didn’t think he could do it but he did. He landed slap bang in the middle of the Hudson River. And with only 5 major injuries and 95 miner ones mostly hypothermia the landing has been a success

I spent the next few days in hospital with a deep laceration waiting to get out, to congratulate and thank Captain Sully.

Alíona Ní Amailtín