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Searching... Hardwood Creek Library (Forest Lake) | 363.1249 PRO | Searching... Unknown |
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Summary
Summary
In this heart-stopping, page-turning tale of fear, heroism, and redemption, the passengers of the Hudson River crash landing tell their remarkable stories. Millions watched the aftermath on television, while others witnessed the event actually happening from the windows of nearby skyscrapers. But only 155 people know firsthand what really happened on U.S. Airways Flight 1549 on January 15, 2009. Now, for the first time, the survivors detail their astounding, terrifying, and inspiring experiences on that freezing winter day in New York City. Written by two esteemed journalists, Miracle on the Hudsonis the entire tale from takeoff to bird strike to touchdown to rescue, seen through the eyes and felt in the souls of those on board the fateful flight. Revealing many new and compelling details, Miracle on the Hudson dramatically evokes the explosion and "smell of burning flesh" as both engines were destroyed by geese, the violent landing on the river that felt like a "huge car wreck," the gridlock in the aisles as the plane filled swiftly with freezing water, and the thrill of the passengers' rescue from the wings and from rafts-all of it recalled by the "cross section of America" on board. Jay McDonald, a thirty-nine-year-old software developer, had survived brain-tumor surgery just two years earlier and now faced the unimaginable. Tracey Wolsko, a nervous flier, suddenly became other people's rock: "Just pray. It's going to be all right." Jim Whitaker, a construction executive, reassured a nervous mother of two young children on board, only later admitting, "I was pathologically lying the whole time." As the plane started sinking, Lucille Palmer, eighty-five, told her daughter to save herself: "Just leave me!" Featuring much more than what the media reported-moments of chaos in addition to stoicism and common sense, and the fortuitous mistakes and quick instincts that saved lives that otherwise would have been lost---Miracle on the Hudson is the chronicle of one of the most phenomenal feel-good stories of recent years, one that could have been a nightmare and instead became a stirring narrative of heroism and hope for our times.
Author Notes
William Walter Prochnau was born in Everett, Washington on August 9, 1937. He graduated from Everett Junior College and Seattle University. He was a sportswriter for The Everett Herald before moving to The Seattle Times. He left The Times in 1974 and founded the short-lived Daily Journal-American. He was the political editor of The Post-Intelligencer in Seattle before becoming a full-time reporter for The Washington Post. In 1996, he became a contributing editor to Vanity Fair.
His Vanity Fair article Adventures in the Ransom Trade became the basis for the movie Proof of Life starring Meg Ryan and Russell Crowe. Prochnau wrote several books including Once Upon a Distant War: Young War Correspondents and the Early Vietnam Battles and Trinity's Child, which inspired the script for By Dawn's Early Light starring James Earl Jones. Prochnau died from coronary artery disease on March 28, 2018 at the age of 80.
(Bowker Author Biography)
Reviews (2)
Publisher's Weekly Review
In a stunning display of skill and steely nerves, pilot Chesley Sullenberger managed a Hudson River water landing in freezing weather, with no engines, to save the lives of every single person aboard his aircraft. Aided by New York and New Jersey emergency responders steeped in post-9/11 training, Sullenberger and his crew did everything right when everything around them had gone horribly wrong. Interviewing survivors of flight 1549, husband-and-wife journalists Prochnau and Parker piece together a detailed, moment-by-moment account of the accident and its aftermath, getting inside the heads of ordinary people who demonstrated remarkable courage and humanity. Anyone who remembers the dramatic 2009 event will be riveted by this account, even with a forgone happy conclusion. Notably absent is the testimony of Captain Sullenberger, who saved his insights for his own book, Highest Duty, but this passengers'-eye-view narrative makes an absorbing, inspirational record. (Nov.) Copyright 2009 Reed Business Information.
Booklist Review
So far, in the publication of books about the dramatic ditching of US Airways Flight 1549, the pilot has told his story (Chesley Sullenberger's Highest Duty, 2009); the plane has had its story told (William Langewiesche's Fly by Wire, 2009); and now most of the passengers tell their tales. Veteran journalists, the authors interviewed 118 of the 150 people onboard (but not the flight crew). Like the proverbial witnesses to a traffic accident, none, it seems, saw the same thing despite experiencing the same in-flight emergency, so fear and confusion in the passenger cabin are the dominating continuity in Prochnau and Parker's narrative. It is otherwise as kaleidoscopic as temperament and life experience make any collection of strangers. Some naturally made indelible impressions by their reactions to what seemed like imminent death: men cravenly shoving their way to the exits; others gallantly assisting the evacuation. These accounts of how people behaved will certainly prompt readers to imagine how they might have responded, so expect great interest in the audience that actually heard the words, This is the captain. Brace for impact! --Taylor, Gilbert Copyright 2009 Booklist
Excerpts
Excerpts
Chapter One Come Fly with Me New York awoke that thursday morning in january to a storybook scene-- Manhattan in a snowstorm; the flakes whipping almost sideways through the skyscraper canyons and a bright coat of white blotting out all of mankind's gray. Storybook, that is, if you were hunkered down and had no intention of flying. Arctic air had also brought in the winter's coldest day, with early- morning temperatures in the low teens and single-digit wind chills. Ice formed around the edges of the Hudson and floes halted ferry traffic in the northern suburbs upstream. Along the Avenue of the Americas, Tripp Harris bent into the wind as he bucked his way to get his morning coffee at Starbucks. The one- block walk seemed like a mile. A technological adviser to banks, he had flown up the night before from Charlotte, North Carolina--"Wall Street South," as his hometown, a burgeoning banking center, had become known. For the past four months, the banking calamity had helped keep US Airways, which had a financial calamity of its own, flying almost at full capacity on its premier north-south runs. Harris, one of the modern "road warriors" who racked up miles with back-to-back business flights, had scheduled a single morning meeting at Citibank. He would make the turnaround in twenty-four hours, less if he was lucky. Knowing the kind of mess the snow would make of LaGuardia, New York's ancient but conveniently located airport, Harris had booked the five o'clock on US Air. With a little luck and the hole card of his frequent-flier status, he'd push for an earlier one--Flight 1549, a two-hour, home-for-dinner flight to Douglas International. Not far away, a few blocks east of the Waldorf, in a window seat at the Café Basil on Third Avenue, Beverly Waters, another Southerner, born and raised just south of Charlotte, drank in the scene with pure joy. She loved the snow, "the flakes were big and Christmas-y," and she thrived on watching the sidewalk drama, too. With their long, rapid strides, the native New Yorkers moved through the storm as if it didn't exist, and nothing else did, either. Beverly had had a successful business trip but she was ready for home and her family. She was a nervous flier, but she hadn't joined the Xanax set yet. Her boarding pass--seat 21E, Flight 1549--sat snugly in her purse. All around the metropolitan area that morning, others were making the choices that would place them on the flight of the decade. In the historic little town of Goshen, New York, an hour and a half north of the city, the woman who would be Flight 1549's most senior citizen, eighty-five-year-old Lucille Palmer, took a midmorning call from her son: "Why are you going down there today? The weather is terrible," he had said. Her great-grandson was down there and it was his first birthday, that's why. And though she couldn't walk very well without her walker, she'd have her daughter, Diane Higgins, with her. In any case, a little thing like turbulence at thirty thousand feet didn't bother her a twit. Neither did snow. She was Brooklyn born, and Brooklyn tough. Bill Zuhowski left Mattituck, Long Island, just before 7:00 a.m. with six inches of snow on the ground, no match for his '03 Chevy Silverado. His flying plans didn't include Charlotte, though. He was headed for an 11:30 Spirit Airways flight to Myrtle Beach, where he planned to celebrate a buddy's birthday. Zuhowski didn't fly much, sticking close to his job at a Long Island swimming-pool company. But he intended to drive the sixty-five miles down the Long Island Expressway to the Manhasset Station, ride the train the last fifteen miles to LaGuardia, and be wearing his shorts in Myrtle Beach by mid- afternoon. Best-laid plans . . . The snow turned the LIE into a mire of fender benders. By the time Zuhowski parked the Silverado, his train had left. Grabbing a cab, he made it Excerpted from Miracle on the Hudson: The Survivors of Flight 1549 Tell Their Extraordinary Stories of Courage, Faith, and Determination by William Prochnau, Laura Parker All rights reserved by the original copyright owners. Excerpts are provided for display purposes only and may not be reproduced, reprinted or distributed without the written permission of the publisher.
