Patrick Harten played a critical role in the successful water landing of US Airways Flight 1549. Harten is a controller at the Federal Aviation Administration’s New York TRACON (Terminal Radar Approach Control) facility.

While most of the focus has been on the life-saving actions of Captain Chesley Sullenberger and crew in the wake of US Airways Flight 1549, the attention is turning to Harten, who was on the line with Sullenberger when he informed flight control that his plane and all 155 people on board (passengers and crew) were, “gonna be in the Hudson.”

The veteran controller said in testimony before the House Aviation Subcommittee, “I simply couldn’t wrap my mind around those words…I believed at that moment, I was going to be the last person to talk to anyone on that plane alive.”

Through masterful airmanship, and coordination with air traffic control, Sullenberger and his passengers would live to tell the world about what happened that afternoon, when the US Airways A320 apparently hit a flock of birds and lost power to both engines.

Before Sullenberger decided on the Hudson, Harten told him he needed to return to New York LaGuardia Airport (LGA). “When a pilot tells a controller he needs to make an emergency landing, the controller must act quickly and decisively,” says Harten. “While I’ve worked 10 or 12 emergencies in the course of my career, I’ve never worked an aircraft with zero thrust capabilities. I understood how grave this situation was.”

But most traumatic part of that remarkable day didn’t hit Harten till after the incident was done. “During the emergency itself, I was hyper-focused. I had no choice but to think and act quickly and remain calm. But when it was over, it hit me hard. It felt like hours before I learned about the heroic water landing that Captain Sullenberger and his crew had managed.”

©Cheapflights Ltd  Jerry Chandler