Knowing something about the topic, I cannot tell you how impressed I am with this pilot. There are two in flight emergencies that just scare me to death. The first, in flight fire. The second, engine out on take off.
The hardest thing to do is stick with the general rule, under your go-around altitude, to “land straight ahead.” Doing that in the water is just exceptionally hard psychologically and practically. The temptation is to try and turn the plane, while “low and slow” and that is just the kiss of death.
Maintaining the energy to get where you want to be and then bleeding it off before landing without stalling the nose into the drink is just a gargantuan accomplishment.
This pilot, and his first officer deserve medals, without a doubt.
Not only that, but, at least given the picture, it looks like the First Officer is still in the cockpit. That’s dedication.
This is also one of the ONLY successful jet emergency water landings I have EVER seen or heard about.
Perhaps Dealbreaker readers would be interested in throwing a few dollars into a little “Hero Fund?”
What say you, Dealbreaker readers?
Archive for January 2009
Yes, we and you know, a US Airways plane headed From Laguardia to Charlotte made a crash landing into the Hudson, after hitting what was thought to be a flock of geese. Commuter ferries are attempting to get everyone off safely. The above photo sent in by a Dealbreaker reader. Take a minute to join us in hoping for a safe rescue for all the passengers and crew, and discuss it here if you’d like. Assholes’ IPs will be nuked. Do not test us on this.
US Airways Plane Crashes in Hudson River [WSJ]
Update: The FAA has apparently put out a release that everyone is off the plane.
From the mailbag:
Cuts as high as 50% in some departments, but the good news is that none of the fuckheads who got the company on the rocks are affected. It was all lower-paid, junior employees.
They’re keeping people on for a month or so and giving a max of 10% severance.
Take note, aspiring Ponz. Masters:
She is more outgoing and warmer than her husband, business associates say, freeing Mr. Madoff to play the avuncular wizard. And that is just part of the role she has played in the success of Madoff Investment Securities. Her mere presence helped make Mr. Madoff the most reassuring of archetypes, the devoted husband, which had a way of pre-empting questions about his integrity.
“Look, I’m an ex-litigator and I can usually smell a crook a mile away,” says Frederick Adler, a Palm Beach entrepreneur who invested a modest sum with Mr. Madoff in the ’90s and withdrew the money when he pulled out of stocks altogether during the tech bubble in 2000. “But I didn’t get any odor from him, and I’m sure she helped. He’s got this pleasant, sweet wife of 30 or 40 years. Not some young chick. It somehow added to his credibility.”
We understand that technology can be difficult, and that some members of the finance community, newly liberated from the chains of their investment banking masters, have heretofore only limited experience with Dealbreaker, web browsers, the network of tubes that is the interwebs and instructions not delivered above 110dB. The curse of web blocking software has deprived an entire generation of financiers the ability to properly browse. Now at home in their pajamas, many are learning for the first time, the wonders of open comments on the forums. As an aside, won’t you please give to the United Finance Workers Proper Browsing Fund? Every little bit helps.
Accordingly, periodically, we post these comment submission instructions, for the benefit of the community at large.
Step 1: Open new tab (tab 1) in browser.
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Step 4: Review carefully. (Hint: If you don’t get the joke, you are probably alone. Telegraphing this in comments is probably unwise before others have gone before you. Short, meaningless missive like “TLDR” or “FIRST” will not amuse the editors. Particularly if the post is short and your comment is not first). Press “Post Comment.”
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Commenting is a privilege and an awesome responsibility. Use it wisely.
We’re not sure people give a rat’s A about Ivy Asset Management but apparently there’s some hardcore herbicide action going down over there circa now.
Speaking of Kanye:
When the TARP was presented to Congress, Secretary Henry Paulson and others argued that the situation was dire, and that the failure of major financial institutions posed a systemic risk to our economy. The stated goal was to unfreeze credit so that banks can make loans to businesses and individuals. It was never contemplated that banks use their capital to make donations to organizations founded by a controversial figure like Jesse Jackson.
This will not end well.
TARP Inspector General Asked to Investigate Citigroup and Bank of America Donations to Rainbow/PUSH [Bloomberg]
Hey, want to manage cash for the Church of England? You don’t even have to believe. Short selling might be out though.
The successful candidate will report to the 33 Church commissioners, who include the Archbishops of York and Canterbury, who are in charge of the Church of England’s investments, which was most recently valued at £5.7bn at the end of 2007. The commissioners are based in London.
Ok, sounds good so far, except maybe the Archbishop part. To wit:
Last year, John Sentamu, the Archbishop of York, said, “To a bystander like me, those who made £190 million deliberately underselling the shares of HBOS, in spite of its very strong capital base, and drove it into the bosom of Lloyds TSB bank, are clearly bank robbers and asset strippers.”
When asked whether the Church would consider employing fund managers who had shorted HBOS, the spokesman said: “Part of the appointments process is assessing a person’s ability to work within the ethos laid down by the Church.”
Einhorn, apparently you’ve got two strikes. (Short seller, Jewish). We still love you, though.
Still, since Sentamu is an experienced skydiver (see photo), I suspect he’d be better at executing the DB Cooper type escape after you two lost most of the Church’s money than certain Indiana managers of recent fame.
(I wonder if they still think interest payments are a sin).
Church of England Seeks Fund Manager-Belief in God Not Required [DealJournal]
He was going to have to face extradition once he healed up, but now it looks like he’ll face federal charges first. The federal charges are a bit of a bore, including intentional communication of a false distress message and willfully damaging, destroying or wrecking an aircraft (this is all you guys could come up with? Where’s the gratuitous terrorism charge? That’s a piece of cake to manage with any crime that includes an airplane!) but they are likely to stick. Hard. After that? The good graces of Indiana’s fraud cases await him.
As blind as justice is supposed to be, no one is going to be very amused and Schrenker is unlikely to catch a break. Anywhere.
Contrary to prior reports, apparently his suicide attempt was pretty credible. CNN reports that he was “bleeding so profusely when he was found that he likely would not have survived another hour without medical help.”
Timing is everything, Marcus.
Captured pilot awaits doctors’ orders [CNN]
No, Gentry Beach Is Not Just The Waterside Property Of An Island Plantation On A British Protectorate
By Equity PrivateTouradjl promised that when he was “finished with [Beach], [Beach] would be ruined and completely unemployable on Wall Street.” Touradji added that he had had no intention of paying Beach the compensation he was owed.
At the end of the meeting, Touradji repeated his threat to destroy Beach and his family, and stated that he would have Beach killed if he crossed him.
Because Touradji screamed at Beach during much of this September 25, 2008 meeting, his threats were overheard by other Touradji Capital employees.
As a result of the foregoing events, Beach was compelled to resign from his employment with Touradji Capital on September 26, 2008, and thus was constructively discharged.
At the same time, he provided Tom Dwan, Touradji Capital’s Chief Financial Officer and Compliance Officer with a letter formally reporting Touradji’s September 5 and 25, 2008 verbal attacks and physical threats.
On September 26, 2008, Beach filed a police report in New York City detailing the threats Touradji made against him and his family, including the threat to have him killed.
Apparently today is death threat day at Dealbreaker. Perhaps Touradji should have expressed his ire in our comments section. Much safer than screaming in the office.
Gentry T. Beach v. Touradji Capital Management (.pdf)
It is a documented fact that neither the present U.S. Secretary of the Treasury – Hank Paulson – nor the incoming man – Tim Geithner – had a clue about what was happening last year. They didn’t seem to understand how America’s system of imperial finance – the system that undergirded expanding world trade – actually worked. They seemed completely surprised when it began to crash. Clearly, neither is competent to manage such a system.
So we have a suggestion. Why not turn to a man who does know? In all the world, there is one man who has proven that he knows better than anyone, not only how it works…but how to work.
That man is Bernie Madoff. Instead of putting him in jail, put him at the Treasury.
Put Bernie Madoff at the Treasury! [The Daily Reckoning]
