It’s not enough that the valiant pilot who is becoming known throughout New York as “Sully” (since it’s easier to remember than his full last name) landed what was effectively nothing more than a minivan with wings smoothly on the Hudson. What really blows me away is that he walked the length of the sinking plane TWICE to make sure that every single passenger was out.
Meanwhile, the question that no one seems to be asking
Were the geese who flew into the plane, in fact, terrorist geese? Trained by Osama bin Laden? Kind of like “Day of the Dolphin” but with poultry?
I expect a congressional investigation into this fowl business immediately.
PAD
• 
This will obviously be the first thing Barack Obama calls upon Congress to do, to learn the truth about these potentially terrorist geese!
Just the very fact that we can joke about this tells you about this rare day when tragedy was averted and life prevailed.
No thanks, though, to the Avian Flight Liberation Army Cadre (AFLAC). Whether they are in the right in finding mankind’s behavior towards our feathered friends to be most foul, this escalation from their usual tactics of carpet bombing and sonic assault is unjustified. Clearly, it’s time for the Department of Waterfowl Security to get involved. We must declare open season on geese and ducks. We must win this war on honkers!
What really bugged me is that even though the reports right off the bat said that it was birds, every few minutes somebody had to “remind” everybody that there’s no suspected terrorism involved. One of the local news stations did it, one of the reporters asked Bloomburg about it.
I don’t want to sound crass – the same thing happened after the Lidle plane crash a couple of years ago – but are people still that hung up over 9/11 in NYC where anything and everything is suspected terrorism?
I have to wonder, because the initial press conference also had Bloomburg making a comment to the effect of “We had 9/11, so we know how to deal with this.” It makes me cringe.
He is ex military, and Sully is a nick name that gets used a lot in the military. It may be his actual nick name. I wouldn’t be surprised.
While in the Navy, I knew several Sully’s.
I’m amused by the survivor who keep saying ‘god’ was looking out for them. Uh, if that were the case, couldn’t the whole mess been avoided by not having the geese fly into the plane to begin with?
Same idea here:
http://www.matthewgood.org/2009/01/birds-linked-to-al-qaeda-attack-plane/
I think that the media and almost everybody else is looking for a hero and a feelgood story.
Fascinating that the crash was the lead story on cable news (and even on HANNITY) on the night of Shrub’s farewell speech.
Hey, all credit where it’s due, but let’s not leave out the praise for the captains of the ferry boats and the other boats in the water when the plane hit. By all accounts the captains of those boats turned them towards the plane as soon as it hit the water in order to help survivors. In a time when way too many people simply walk past people that need help or are even dying in the streets it was a welcome sight to see the news talking about the almost instantaneous response of the various boat captains and even some of the people on the ferries.
Hey, all credit where it’s due, but let’s not leave out the praise for the captains of the ferry boats and the other boats in the water when the plane hit. By all accounts the captains of those boats turned them towards the plane as soon as it hit the water in order to help survivors. In a time when way too many people simply walk past people that need help or are even dying in the streets it was a welcome sight to see the news talking about the almost instantaneous response of the various boat captains and even some of the people on the ferries.
It’s not that they were terrorist geese. They just forgot to duck.
Well, have no doubt that if this was a terrorist bird attack that Homeland Security will find a pigeon to roast and get some good information from in order to hunt those geese down and bring ’em to justice. Yeah, once they stuff those geese in jail, they can stew over the wrongness of their actions and maybe become useful citizens again.
My question is this– we’ve come up with all sorts of plans to keep potential terrorists off of planes, and to make sure that potential weapons can’t be taken on planes, but what’s to stop some fiend from buying up, like, a shitload of geese and releasing them right next to the airport? Seems like a much bigger threat than hair gel in my carry-on…
What I want to know is why has no reporter been out there interviewing the family of the poor gooses (erm, geese)! Not even Fox, whom I’m lead to believe are quite fond of geese.
What I want to know is why has no reporter been out there interviewing the family of the poor gooses (erm, geese)! Not even Fox, whom I’m lead to believe are quite fond of geese.
Airbus takes after Paris (the city, not the bimbo): “Fluctuat nec Mergitur”.
I confess that I didn’t think immediately of Al-Qaeda or terrorism, it seems more like the work of some bird-themed supervillain like the Penguin.
When first I heard the story someone told me it was a flock of seagulls, which leads to visions of engine failure due to do hair gel overload.
Bradley: My question is this– we’ve come up with all sorts of plans to keep potential terrorists off of planes, and to make sure that potential weapons can’t be taken on planes, but what’s to stop some fiend from buying up, like, a shitload of geese and releasing them right next to the airport? Seems like a much bigger threat than hair gel in my carry-on…
*Diary of a bird launching terrorist*
Day 1: Birds just sat there when we opened the door. The smell was… bad. On plus side, we don’t have to buy new birds for a second attempt.
Day 2: Used wiffle bats to drive birds out of truck, but then they settled at the McDonalds down the block and ate decadent American French Fries that had fallen onto pavement.
Day 3: Made sure birds were well fed first, but didn’t get a chance to release them. As soon as we parked the truck some Americans beat us up for “lookin’ Arab around an airport.” Can you believe how racist these people are?
Actually, since Sully is very close to Scully, maybe these are some mutant geese and this is actually an X-file??
Posted by Auryn
When first I heard the story someone told me it was a flock of seagulls, which leads to visions of engine failure due to do hair gel overload.
Auryn, meet Bradley.
His full name is Chesley B Sullenberger III {http://tinyurl.com/9mdngl}.
Both engines are missing, though witnesses said they appeared to be present as the plane came down in the river.
That’s going to cause some 9/11 conspiracy nut types to start claiming that this was actually part of the same government plot and that they were destroyed by remote-controlled explosives and then blown free of the wings by explosive bolts one the plane was in the water so that divers could “find” previously planted engines that had actually been destroyed by artificial bird strikes…
The way I’m hearing it, the whole thing was over in under six minutes, from take-off to splashdown…
I’m pretty certain that however cool, calm and collected the average New Yorker is, on seeing 50 tons of aircraft coming in over the river at rapidly decreasing height the first though was not “Gee, he must have had a bird strike…”
Repeatedly telling people it was not a terrorist attack was probably a pretty good idea.
For the record, I figure anyone with çøjøņëš the size of this guy’s should be called “Sir”, whatever his name or nicknames are!
Cheers!
Well, honestly, Peter. Don’t you know that you only need to take a gander at them to find out?
Hey, all credit where it’s due, but let’s not leave out the praise for the captains of the ferry boats and the other boats in the water when the plane hit.
Glenn Reynolds pointed out that they also performed a great service right after 9/11. New Yorkers seem to be blessed with a surfeit of competence among its waterfolk.
All I can picture is Eddie Izzard’s whole bit about “bird strike.”
“Well, that’s a misnomer, isn’t it? It’s not bird strike, it’s ENGINE SUCK. Engine suck birds, make soup…”
TWL
Tim Lynch at January 16, 2009 09:03 PM
All I can picture is Eddie Izzard’s whole bit about “bird strike.”
“Well, that’s a misnomer, isn’t it? It’s not bird strike, it’s ENGINE SUCK. Engine suck birds, make soup…”
Actually, according to a story on “All Things Considered” on Friday, what’s left of the bird in these situations is called “snarge.”
If you don’t believe me, go here:
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=99474333
Perhaps the geese thought Fabio was on the plane…
All right, that was bad.
The stuff of legend.
Or, possibly, the leg end of stuffing…
http://www.snopes.com/science/cannon.asp
Cheers.
What bird-brain decided to build airports on the main Eastern Seaboard migration route? I’m sure many people have a bone to peck about that…
While we duck that one, how about the poor people on the upper deck of the GWB, when the plane passed by just 900 feet away? How many needed clean clothes after that? The pilot deserves every medal we have for landing the plane safely, but missing that bridge? No pun, but priceless. Let alone the massive fatalities, it would have ground eastern commerce to a halt for years to come. Can you imagine having to commute with double the traffic on the Tappan Zee? Or the Newburgh Bridge?
You seem to have missed all of the fun. Within minutes, a thread was up at DailyKOS, and bad (and I mean really awful) puns were flying (into planes), many of which centered on the idea that Canada had attacked us in a very fowl and dastardly fashion, using specially trained quack troops.
I was giggling all afternoon (once it had been ascertained that everyone got out of the plane safe).
Having seen several plane crashes during my time in naval aviation, I gotta give BIG kudos to the pilot.
“By all accounts the captains of those boats turned them towards the plane as soon as it hit the water in order to help survivors. In a time when way too many people simply walk past people that need help or are even dying in the streets it was a welcome sight”
A good thing, sure, but no surprise. The law of the sea is drummed into any professional seagoing type. A very ‘Commander Stone’ one where, “Always lend a hand when things go down.”
This video on YouTube agrees with your idea of Terrorist Geese.
This video on YouTube pretty much agrees with the terrorist geese idea.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5eTuSWNWxt0
1I don’t know if people in other parts of the country are having trouble with Canadian geese but here in brockton Mass. we are. They mess our ball fields,my students at North Jr.High have to dodge their dropings,and they seem to like using my car in particular for target practice! While it is indeed a heroic feat for Captain Sully and his crew to have done they job they did,Why hasn’t our President and Vice-President put Canada on the Axis of Evil for sending these birds down on us?
If I remember correctly, there were over 200 calls to 911 within minutes of the crash landing.
As for terrorist geese/birds… Don’t forget in the third Indiana Jones movie, Henry Jones Sr used birds to take down a plane. Did anyone see an older gentleman running around waving an umbrella at geese? 😉
First–Susan, thank you SO much for putting THAT image in my head. Therapy has helped, but still the nightmares about the Tappan Zee come….
Anyway, before I left work this morning, I saw that Sully has been invited to the inauguration. You KNOW that the Daily Show is going to be looking for Mike Wizowski.