Video of US Airways descent into Hudson River released

New York–The Coast Guard and National Transportation Safety Board released Coast Guard footage today of the U.S. Airways passenger plane as it conducted an emergency landing into the Hudson River Jan. 15, 2009.

The video was captured by Coast Guard Vessel Traffic Service. The purpose of a VTS is to provide active monitoring and navigational advice for vessels in particularly confined and busy waterways. There are two main types of VTS, surveillance and non-surveillance. Surveillance systems consist of one or more land-based sensors (including radar, Automated Identification Systems and closed circuit television sites), which output their signals to a central location where operators monitor and manage vessel traffic movement. Non-surveillance systems consist of one or more reporting points at which ships are required to report their identity, course, speed, and other data to the monitoring authority.

The plane comes into the picture from the left side at about the 3:31 mark on the screen.


The Coast Guard operates 12 Vessel Traffic Centers (VTC): Prince William Sound, Puget Sound, Valdez, Seattle, San Francisco, Los Angeles/Long Beach, Houston-Galveston, Berwick Bay, Louisville, Saint Mary’s River, Port Arthur, Tampa, and New York.


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