Passengers on the plane that ditched into the Hudson River in January have told a federal safety panel it was a flight attendant — not a panicked passenger — who opened a rear door on the aircraft, sending water rushing into the cabin.
WASHINGTON — Passengers on the plane that ditched into the Hudson River in January have told a federal safety panel it was a flight attendant — not a panicked passenger — who opened a rear door on the aircraft, sending water rushing into the cabin.
The National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) has scheduled three days of hearings this week on safety issues arising from the forced landing of US Airways Flight 1549 into the Hudson between New York and New Jersey on Jan. 15. The first two witnesses are scheduled to be the flight’s captain, Chesley Sullenberger, and passenger Billy Campbell, who was seated in the second-to-last row of the Airbus A320.
Board member Robert Sumwalt, who will chair the hearing, said Campbell has told NTSB investigators that it was flight attendant Doreen Welsh who cracked open the door, not a passenger.
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After the ditching, Welsh said in media interviews and testimony before Congress that a passenger pushed past her to open the door.
“That’s what we want to straighten out. We want to get his testimony on that, was it a passenger or a flight attendant?” Sumwalt said.
Several passengers interviewed by investigators have given similar accounts, NTSB spokesman Peter Knudson said.
In a Feb. 9 account to NBC News, Welsh described what she said happened:
“Well, I got out of my jump seat and went back and looked out the porthole and saw water. And, wow, then I turned around to start guiding the people away, just then a passenger knocked me over and went and just wildly, I mean, she was just frantic and said, ‘Open the door, open the door,’ and she cracked the door. I had to take her and get her away, but she had put it up just enough that it broke the seal and that water came gushing in.”
A spokeswoman for the Association of Flight Attendants said Welsh was unavailable for comment.
“While there may be conflicting reports regarding the exact actions of what happened immediately after crashing, the bottom line is that everyone was evacuated,” said Corey Caldwell, a spokeswoman for the union.
Flight 1549 collided with a flock of Canada geese minutes after takeoff from LaGuardia Airport in New York, losing thrust in both engines. Sullenberger has said he decided to glide the plane into the Hudson rather than risk crashing in a densely populated area. All 155 aboard survived.
A rupture in the plane’s fuselage sent water streaming into the cabin. The opening of one of two rear doors compounded the problem. Afterward, passengers in the rear of the plane described a harrowing scene in which people struggled to move forward to safety as the water rose.
In a related development, the Senate Commerce, Science and Transportation Committee has scheduled hearings Wednesday and June 17 on pilot fatigue and safety.
Those hearings were prompted by the Feb. 12 crash of Continental Connection Flight 3407 near Buffalo, N.Y., that killed 50 people, including all 49 on board the jet and one on the ground. A House hearing is also planned for June, although no date has been set. Colgan Air operated the flight for Continental.
Flight 3407’s crash has raised concerns about the operations of the nation’s regional airlines, a sector of the aviation industry that has grown to account for half the country’s airline flights and a quarter of its passengers.
At hearings in May, witnesses and safety officials raised questions about whether Flight 3407’s pilot, Capt. Marvin Renslow, 47, and co-pilot Rebecca Shaw, 24, had been adequately trained and whether they might have been hampered by, among other factors, fatigue.
Renslow commuted from his home near Tampa, Fla., and Shaw commuted to the East Coast from her home in Maple Valley.
Material from The Seattle Times archive is included in this report.