NEW YORK (WCBS 880) — In the wake of 9/11, a low-flying plane heading towards the Hudson River sparked panic across New York City, but instead of tragedy, a miracle happened.
Mere minutes after taking off for North Carolina from LaGuardia Airport on the afternoon of Jan. 15, 2009, just five days before the inauguration of Barack Obama, US Airways Flight 1549 struck a flock of Canada geese and lost all engine power just north of the George Washington Bridge.
Pilots Chesley “Sully” Sullenberger and Jeffrey Skiles considered landing at nearby Teterboro Airport in New Jersey, but quickly realized that was out of the question.
"We can't do it," Sully can be heard saying in audio from air traffic control that day. "We're gonna be in the Hudson."
With that, Sully ditched the plane in the frigid Hudson River on a 19-degree winter day, just four minutes after the bird strike occurred, saving all 155 passengers and crew onboard.
PHOTOS: A Look Back At The Miracle On The Hudson
In this week's WCBS880 In Depth podcast, we're pulling back the curtain on the story with the reporters who covered it.
"The first word that we got about it was some phone calls to the newsroom that said there was a plane in the Hudson, and I said, 'Yeah, right.' I didn't think so," news director Tim Scheld remembers. "And then we got another call, and then another call and then another call. Then we flipped the cameras on in the newsroom and we saw the plane in the water."
Wayne Cabot and Steve Scott were on the air when the crash happened.
"The thought that there was a plane in the Hudson River, the first thing you're thinking of is, 'This has got to be awful, it's gotta be catastrophic. We're going to be doing this very painful story now about bodies and wreckage.' The reason I remember it is because it didn't turn out that way at all," Cabot said. "It was something we could actually feel good about when the day was over."
From The Audio Vault: Hear Coverage From The Miracle On The Hudson
As Scott points out in the podcast, there had never been a successful water landing of a large aircraft in this type of scenario.
"Jetliners have tried to ditch in the water, it just doesn't work, there are too many variables that can lead to disaster," Scott said. "When I first heard there was an aircraft down in the water, my heart sunk because I know the history with trying to ditch in the water. But as soon as we got that picture, that famous sight of the plane floating and people seemingly standing on water when in fact they were about ankle deep standing on the wings, as soon as I saw that I did certainly have a glimmer of hope."
By chance, reporter Peter Haskell was covering a story blocks away from where Flight 1549 landed in the river.
"I go over there and I see this plane in the river and there is an NYPD helicopter 20 feet above the water and there are scuba divers jumping in... it's like the recruiting videos you see," Haskell recalled.
Unaware that everybody had already been rescued by the time he had arrived at the scene, Haskell chased the plane as the river's current took the airbus down the Hudson.
"At that point I did not know if there were still people on the plane so that's why I was running with the plane trying to figure out, 'Are there still people there?'" he said.
RELATED: Survivor Reflects On 'Miracle On The Hudson' Anniversary
Scheld also found out that one of his close friends was on the flight, Rockland County native Steve O’Brien, who called him the next morning to share his story.
O'Brien opened up to Scheld, knowing that he had experienced his own scare in the air. In 1992, Scheld was onboard an aircraft that caught fire on takeoff at Kennedy Airport.
O’Brien said the plane ride started as a routine trip, but changed dramatically mid-flight when the bird strike happened.
“I was strangely calm and I couldn’t get my mind around it, I was just thinking that these things don’t happen. Then, realization that we’re going to crash and the realization that I was going to die,” O’Brien said at the time.
The incident forever became known as the “Miracle on the Hudson" and Captain Sully is now a living legend.