Ferry boats came to rescue of downed passengers

Washington Post:

On Thursday afternoon, Capt. Vince Lombardi was backing his ferry, the Thomas Jefferson, out of Manhattan's Pier 79 in the Hudson River when he noticed a strange-looking boat.

No, he realized -- it was a commercial jet. Lombardi quickly moved his crew into high gear for a rescue.

"I gave the command to my guys: 'Get the overboard equipment ready. We got to do this fast, or we're not going to have any survivors,' " Lombardi said.

No ferry captain expects to encounter a disaster of this magnitude, said Lombardi and a half-dozen other captains who helped all 155 survivors of a US Airways jet that crash-landed in the Hudson River. But they're trained for it. They learn CPR, basic firefighting and hypothermia treatment.

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Their response time is almost always less than two minutes, most often less than a minute and a half, said Vince Lucante, a port captain for New York Waterway, Lombardi's company. On Thursday, Coast Guard video showed, the first boat was alongside the jet within three minutes of it hitting the water.

"It's not in the day-to-day job description, but it is there," said Michael Starr, another port captain for New York Waterway. "People don't often realize the emergency skills a ferryboat job requires."

The pilot of the Charlotte-bound US Airways jet was aware of the ferryboats, his co-pilot told the National Transportation Safety Board on Saturday, and picked a spot that would be close to them, so that his passengers could be rescued before the plane sank.

An NTSB member said pilot Chesley B. "Sully" Sullenberger III told investigators that he landed in the Hudson to avoid "catastrophic consequences" over a populated area.

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These guys were as critical to the rescue as the plane crew. It took only about one minute to evacuate the plane. That is far faster than it would happen at a terminal. With the rescue ferries arriving within three minutes, it meant that the passengers had to wait only two minutes before the rescue began. It was a remarkable effort all around.

I have always been a big fan of ferry boats. It is some of the cheapest sight seeing you can do, The ferry from Portland Maine up to Canada and back cost only a few dollars and the scenery is spectacular. There is also a great ferry ride from Seattle up to Victoria, BC. I even enjoy the Boliver ferry from Galveston Island which has the benefit of being free.