New York (CNN) -- When US Airways Flight 1549 ditched in the Hudson River and all of its 150 passengers and five crew members were safely rescued in January, the landing of the airplane by pilot Chesley Sullenberger was quickly proclaimed the "Miracle on the Hudson" and dominated national news for days.



A pilot who virtually grew up in airplane cockpits, writer William Langewiesche set out to analyze what happened in the five-minute flight of US Airways 1549, which lost power in both engines when it collided with a flock of Canada geese. His conclusion after writing a new book "Fly by Wire" -- there was no miracle.



"I'm sure Mr. Sullenberger himself wouldn't have used that word," Langewiesche said in an interview with CNN. "There was no miracle. There was extremely skillful flying going on and skillful engineering in the background. You can include the flight attendants and the passengers. ... There was a lot of altruism, kind of a bravery, soberness. They were not hysterical, and there was no stampeding.



"Many good things happened, but they all related to the individual strength of the people involved. That includes [Bernard] Ziegler [the designer of the aircraft], Sullenberger, [co-pilot Jeffrey] Skiles and Patrick Harten, the air traffic controller -- he was as good as it gets, offering alternatives, the backing off of alternatives, staying cool."



Langewiesche, international editor for Vanity Fair and author of six other books, was drawn to the story because it allowed him to use it as a window to tell the tale of the aircraft, the Airbus A320, a controversial plane built with digital controls that rein in pilots who exceed safe flying limits.



"Within the limits of physics and structural science," Langewiesche writes, "Ziegler and his colleagues identified the wrinkles of conventional handling and mostly ironed them out. The result in the A320 is the product of a genius -- an airplane that is ... exquisitely wrought, a delight to handle, and extraordinarily easy to fly."



It also allowed Langewiesche to describe the economic squeeze that has affected pilots as airlines have come under tremendous pressure to lower fares and reduce costs. Just one example described in the book -- Sullenberger had seen his salary cut 40 percent and his retirement pension destroyed through airline bankruptcies and cutbacks.



Sullenberger, for his part, has been critical of Langewiesche's book, saying it makes too much of the aircraft's automation. In an interview with The New York Times, Sullenberger said, "There are some situations where the automation will protect a pilot, but at the same time a highly automated airplane makes possible other types of errors, so it's a mixed blessing. And greater knowledge is required to fly a highly automated aircraft."



CNN spoke with Langewiesche this week.



CNN: What got you interested in the story?



William Langewiesche: I realized that because this airplane is the A320, which is a revolutionary plane, not just any airplane, the story of the A320 is in many ways the story of the modern airline industry of the last 20, 30 or 40 years.



CNN: How did you become a pilot?



Langewiesche: My father was a well-known aviator and writer. I got my first flying job when I was 18; I worked my way through college flying airplanes. My father was a German immigrant, an anti-Nazi who came here before the beginning of the war ... who became a test pilot for the U.S. Navy.



CNN: What's it like to fly an A320?



Langewiesche: It all relates to flight control characteristics and how the stick feels in your hand. ... The attitude or the pitch of the airplane stays where you put it, it's an airplane that responds in an extremely docile manner to the control stick when it's flown by hand. ... The airplane was very controversial in the early 1980s, especially in France. The unions really resented it; it was because of flight envelope protections that kick in when the plane goes where a normal airline pilot will never go. ... The
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