On January 15, 2009, U.S. Airways Captain Chesley “Sully” Sullenberger safely landed Flight 1549 on the Hudson river in New York after he lost both the aircraft engines to bird hits shortly after take off from LaGuardia Airport.

"Oh, what a view of the Hudson today" say Capt. Sully

On June 9th 2009, the National Transportation Safety Board released data about the Flight 1549 accident in which Captain Sully landed the US Airways plane on the Hudson River in New York. Exosphere3D a Denver based company specializing in technical animation and scientific visualization of complex data sets took this data and created incredibly detailed 3D visual simulations of the accident.

On Nov 2nd 2009, Exosphere3D released this video to the public domain, and then gave some insights into how they created these incredible videos.

Exosphere3D’s statements from their video release page

“This animation is based on all currently available data concerning the US Airways Flight 1549 crash (Cactus 1549). Satellite imagery, elevation models and robust GIS mapping methods are utilized to create a vegetation model, terrain model and ground clutter (3D buildings). Of all available audio tracks, only two are used, La Guardia Tower and New York TRACON Departure controller position. Radar data as well as the onboard Flight Data Recorder are utilized in constructing the flightpath of the aircraft.”

Here are 2 of these incredible simulation videos.

and

There’s more.

• Exosphere3D web page of this project. The sheer amount of data sets and complexity on this page is astonishing !
• Captain Sully’s Facebook Page
• Book praising Capt. Sully: Highest Duty: My Search for What Really Matters
• Book criticizing Capt. Sully: Fly by Wire: The Geese, the Glide, the Miracle on the Hudson
• Time.com Book Review – Fly by Wire: Sully, Re-examined.

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