On Airbus, some turbulence and two counter-intuitive décisions
The freak emergency landing of US Airways A320 1549 on the Hudson River in 2009 grabbed people’s attention. Against all odds, and contrary to all known procedures, order and certainty, it’s a great example of agile thinking as told from the perspective of 2024.
With the aircraft losing all engine power shortly after take-off, the pilot managed to bring the plane down against all the odds. This remarkable episode provides the framework for decisions that challenge preconceived ideas and processes.
The captain abandoned the obvious option of making an emergency landing at a nearby airport. Instead, he elected to put the plane down on water, even though pilots aren’t trained to do so, and there were only two precedents for successfully landing a large aircraft this way. But the captain was a glider pilot, and he knew how to leverage this skill to the full and try out an unexpected solution. And yet, he followed the standard procedure – trying to restart the engines – to the end.
A counter-intuitive decision was also being played out in the aircraft cabin. While the plane was taking on water (at 5°!), a passenger went up to the back of the aircraft to help everyone get out instead of worrying about his own fate.
In spite of the stress, an experienced pilot and a passenger both managed to keep their initial instinct in check before finding a much better way out of the predicted chaos. How? Dave Sanderson dissects the key points, namely: the importance of staying calm, quick thinking to come up with a gameplan, and the mental fortitude to get moving in the face of urgent, turbulent circumstances.
To go further
“Navigating Turbulence : Dave Sanderson’s Extraordinary Story of the Miracle on the Dudson”
by Dave Sanderson and Sean Osborn (Thinking Big Podcast, January 2024).
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