CHARLOTTE, N.C. — Two years after a US Airways jet left New York for Charlotte and made a miraculous landing on the Hudson River, it reached its intended destination and future home in a museum.
“My flight has finally come home,” said Eileen Shleffar, who was sitting in seat 13D when the plane splashed in the river.
US Airways Flight 1549 had just taken off from LaGuardia airport when a flock of geese disabled the engines Jan. 15, 2009. Captain Chesley “Sully” Sullenberger glided it into a water landing. All 155 passengers and crew members were rescued.
Thousands of people in several states lined up along the road to glimpse the 120-foot-long fuselage on its 600-mile journey on a flatbed truck from Newark, N.J., where it spent the past two years in a hangar. The wings from the damaged Airbus A320 were removed and shipped earlier to the Carolinas Aviation Museum.
Sullenberger, who will speak today at a fundraiser for the exhibit, said the landing still resonates with people.
“It gives them hope,” he said. “It came at a time during the financial worldwide meltdown and people were quite frankly beginning to question basic goodness of human nature, and this kind of reaffirmed our belief in the potential of good that exists in all of us.”
