Salvage teams hoist ditched plane from New York's Hudson River

New York: A US Airways airplane that crashed into New York's Hudson River is being lifted onto a barge on Sunday.

Salvage crews used a crane to lift the down aircraft, which looked badly scarred as it was lifted up by five large slings.

The plane was to be towed away for examination by investigators probing the accident in which all 155 passengers and crew survived, most escaping serious injury.

The National Transportation Safety Board said one engine was still attached to the plane, contrary to earlier reports that both engines had come apart.

The pilot and co-pilot had said they spotted a flock of birds just before the emergency. The pilot also said that he suddenly saw the plane's windscreen filled with birds after takeoff.

Meanwhile, new details emerged about the crash airplane as the pilot, Captain Chesley B. “Sully'' Sullenberger told investigators on Sunday that he decided to land in the Hudson River to avoid a “catastrophic'' crash in a populated neighbourhood.

Sullenberger said that in the few minutes he had to decide where to set the powerless plane down, he felt it was "too low, too slow" and near too many buildings to go anywhere but into the river, according to the National Transportation Safety Board account of his testimony.

The pilot and his first officer provided their first account to NTSB investigators of what unfolded inside US Airways Flight 1549 in the moments after it slammed into a flock of birds and lost both engines.

Co-pilot Jeff Skiles, who was flying the plane, saw the birds coming in perfect formation, and made note of it. Sullenberger looked up, and in an instant his windscreen was filled with big, dark-brown birds.

"His instinct was to duck," said NTSB board member Kitty Higgins, recounting their interview. Then there was a thump, the smell of burning birds, and silence as both aircraft engines cut out. "My aircraft!" Sullenberger said.

With both engines out, flight attendants described complete silence in the cabin, "like being in a library," said NTSB member Kitty Higgins. A smoky haze and the odor of burning metal or electronics filled the plane.

The pilot said he tried to set down near a boat, to increase the possibility that survivors would be rescued, he told investigators. The aircraft hit close to several popular landings, and rescuers were able to arrive within minutes.