Chesley Sullenberger 29 to 31, 2007. On January 15, 2009, Sullenberger was the captain of US Airways Flight 1549, an Airbus A320 taking off from LaGuardia Airport in New York City. Shortly after takeoff, the plane struck a large flock of birds (Canada geese) and lost power in both engines. Quickly determining he would be unable to reach either LaGuardia or Teterboro airport, Sullenberger piloted the plane to a water landing on the Hudson River. All 155 people on board survived and were rescued by nearby boats. Sullenberger said later: "It was very quiet as we worked, my copilot Jeff Skiles and
Pollution of the Hudson River a beach nearby, however Dominick Pirone, an ecologist and former director of the Hudson River Fishermen's Association (now Riverkeeper) was quoted as saying: "You can tell what color cars they are painting on a given day by what color the river is." A 2008 study suggested that mercury in common Hudson River fish, including striped bass, yellow perch, largemouth bass, smallmouth bass and carp, declined strongly over the preceding three decades. The conclusions were extracted from a large database of mercury analyses of fish fillets accumulated by NYSDEC and collected over much of the length of the Hudson, from New