NEW YORK A US Airways pilot guided his jetliner into the frigid Hudson River after a congregation of birds knocked out both its engines just after takeoff Thursday, and all 155 the public on board were pulled to safety since the plane slowly sank. “We had a miracle upon 34th Street. I convinced now we have had a miracle on the Hudson,” Gov. David Paterson said.

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One victim suffered two stumbling legs, a paramedic said, end in that place were no other reports of serious injuries.

The even, an Airbus A320 that had taken off minutes earlier from LaGuardia Airport bound for Charlotte, N.C., was submerged up to its windows in the river when rescuers arrived in Coast Guard vessels and ferries. Some passengers waited in water up to their knees, standing on the wing of the plane for help.

Police drivers had to rescue some of the passengers from underwater, Mayor Michael Bloomberg declared. Among those on board was one bairn who appeared to be fine, the mayor reported.

Helen Rodriguez, a paramedic who was amid the first to arrive at the spectacle, before-mentioned she saw common woman with two broken legs. Fire officials said others were evaluated for hypothermia, bruises and other minor injuries.

The crash took place on a 20-degree day, one of the coldest of the season in New York. State environmental officials estimated the water was 41 degrees.

“It would appear that the steer did a masterful job of landing-place the plane in the river, and then making sure everybody got out,” Bloomberg said.

Passenger Jeff Kolodjay of Norwalk, Conn., said he heard a single explosion two or three minutes into the flight. He before-mentioned looked out the left side of the plain and saw one of the engines on discharges.

“The captain aforesaid, `Brace conducive to impact because we’re going down,’” Kolodjay said. He added: “It was intense. It was intense. You’ve got to give it to the pilot. He made a hell of a landing-place.”

Witnesses reported the level’s pilot appeared to guide the plane on the ground. Bob Read, a television producer who adage the crash from his office window, said it appeared to be a “controlled descent.”

Paramedics treated at least 78 patients, burning of fuel officials said. Coast Guard boats rescued 35 the multitude who were immersed in the frigid get take in water and ferried them to shore. Some of the rescued were shivering and wrapped in white blankets, their feet and legs soaked.

US Airways Flight 1549 took off at 3:26 p.m. It was less than a minute later when the pilot reported a “double bird strike” and said he needed to return to LaGuardia, before-mentioned Doug Church, a spokesman for the National Air Traffic Controllers Union. He said the controller told the pilot to gratify to an airport in nearby Teterboro, N.J.

The plane splashed into the water roughly off 48th Street in midtown Manhattan.

US Airways CEO Doug Parker confirmed that 150 passengers, three flight attendants and couple pilots were on plank the jetliner.

An authoritative speaking on condition of anonymity because the investigation was still ongoing identified the pilot as Chelsey B. Sullenberger III. A woman answered and hung up at what time the AP asked to speak with Sullenberger’s family in Danville, Calif.

Sullenberger, 58, described himself in every online professional profile as a 29-year employee of US Airways. He started his own consulting duty, Safety Reliability Methods Inc., two years ago.

Bank of America and Wells Fargo said they had employees on the smooth. Charlotte is a major banking center.

The Federal Aviation Administration says there were about 65,000 bird strikes to civil aircraft in the United States from 1990 to 2005, or about one in the place of every 10,000 flights.

“They literally just choke out the engine and it quits,” said Joe Mazzone, a retired Delta Air Lines pilot. He reported air traffic control towers routinely alert pilots if in that place are birds in the area.

The Hudson crash took place almost exactly 27 years after an Air Florida plain border for Tampa crashed into the Potomac River just hind takeoff from Washington National Airport, killing 78 people. Five people on that flight survived.

On Dec. 20, a Continental Airlines plane veered off a runway and slid into a snowy field at the Denver airport, injuring 38 people. That was the first major crash of a commercial airliner in the United States since Aug. 27, 2006, when 49 people were killed after a Comair jetliner mistakenly took off from the wrong runway in Lexington, Ky.

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Associated Press writers Eileen Sullivan and Michael J. Sniffen in Washington; Richard Pyle, Adam Goldman and Deborah Hastings in New York; and Harry R. Weber in Atlanta contributed to this repercussion.

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