US Airways Flight 1549 Hudson River ditching (2009)

The Hudson ditching is the market's textbook case of a bird strike that ends in a hull total loss. On January 15, 2009, the Airbus A320 operating US Airways flight 1549 took off from LaGuardia for Charlotte and hit a flock of Canada geese at about 2,800 feet, less than two minutes later. Both engines lost thrust. Captain Chesley Sullenberger and first officer Jeffrey Skiles judged that no runway was within reach and set the aircraft down on the Hudson, off Manhattan, about six minutes after takeoff. All 155 people aboard got out onto the wings and slides and were picked up by ferries. The market took it as proof that a bird strike can produce a total loss without a single fatality. An aircraft that has sat in cold river water with its engines torn off is not repaired. The hull policy pays the agreed value, which market sources at the time put between $36 million and $40 million. The insurer then takes title to the wreck. It was offered for sale as is, without engines, by the lead insurer's aviation arm, and ended up in a North Carolina museum. The liability side weighed little: lost baggage, expenses, psychological claims. US Airways sent each passenger $5,000 within days, paid ahead of claims and with no admission of fault. The NTSB (National Transportation Safety Board) noted that the geese exceeded the bird mass used for engine certification, which reopened the debate on ingestion standards. The typical claim in this family remains the shop visit for a damaged engine, below or around the deductible.