Flight 1549 crash at Hudson River

More than 200 people have been killed worldwide as a result of wildlife strikes with aircraft since 1988, according to Bird Strike Committee USA, and more than 5,000 bird strikes were reported by the U.S. Air Force in 2007. Bird strikes, or the collision of an aircraft with an airborne bird, tend to happen when aircraft are close to the ground, which means just before landing or after take-off, when jet engines are turning at top speeds.

That is what happening to the flight 1549 on Thursday afternoon after a collision with a flock of birds apparently knocked out both engines.Officials said rescuers safely pulled all 155 people on board into boats as the plane sank. Gov. David Paterson pronounced it "a miracle on the Hudson."

Flight 1549 which carry 150 passengers, three flight attendants and two pilots went down minutes after takeoff from LaGuardia Airport for Charlotte, N.C., splashing into the river near 48th Street in midtown Manhattan , one of the busiest and most closely watched stretches of the river.

"There were eyewitness reports the plane may have flown into a flock of birds,Right now we don't have any indication this was anything other than an accident." said Federal Aviation Administration spokeswoman Laura Brown.

One of the passanger of the flight heard an explosion two or three minutes into the flight, looked out the left side of the Airbus A320 and saw one of the engines on fire. He said the plane hit the water pretty hard, but he was fine.

Rescuers in police and Coast Guard vessels and ferry boats rapidly converged on the plane and pulled passengers in life vests from the aircraft, which was submerged in the icy waters up to the windows, its fuselage still apparently intact. The plane went down on one of the coldest days of the year, with air temperature around 20 degrees and the water 41.

There were no immediate reports of any serious injuries.

Witnesses said the pilot appeared to guide the plane down.

"I see a commercial airliner coming down, looking like it's landing right in the water," said Bob Read, who saw it from his office at the television newsmagazine .

The pilot reported a "double bird strike" less than a minute after taking off, said Doug Church, a spokesman for the National Air Traffic Controllers Union.