Pilot Chelsey Sullenberger switched on his two-way radio and said two words: “Bird strike.”

Moments later, about 3.30pm New York time, US Airways flight 1549 bound for North Carolina dropped out of the sky and into the icy Hudson River.

When the Federal Aviation Authority confirmed that all 155 passengers and crew had survived — mostly without injury — New York Governor David Paterson declared: “We’ve had a miracle on the Hudson.”

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As far as I can remember, this is a major milestone for aviation history! The ditching of flight 1549 is one of the rare successful emergency landing on a body of water with every single person onboard managing to escape alive.

One other successful ditching which I can remember was on 16th of January 2002 when a Boeing 737-300 belonging to an Indonesian Airline had both its engines flamed out. It ditched successfully but one stewardess drowned while escaping.

Water landing is an extreme difficult manouver to carry out and the success rate in a real emergency is really miniscue. Kudos to Captain Sullenberger for this awesome feat!