The “Miracle on the Levée”
How Captain Carlos Became An Aviation Legend
When I wrote Gliding to Safety, in 2022, several people asked why I hadn’t included the famous “Miracle on the Hudson.” The answer is that it’s a wonderful story but very well-known, and although I’m as impressed by Captain Sullenberger’s remarkable airmanship as anyone, I’ve nothing new to add.
It feels more worthwhile to write stories where a new perspective gives better understanding, or those that deserve to be more widely known than they are. Like this one.
In some ways, it’s a similar story to the Hudson; loss of both engines. (For Sully, this was due to bird strike and his plane was an Airbus A320; for Carlos, it was hailstones and his plane was a Boeing 737–300.)
Neither plane had any chance of reaching an airport, but both had brilliant pilots who landed safely in a surprising place (Sully in a river, and Carlos on a muddy levée) and everyone survived.
Maybe the biggest difference is that this event happened 21 years before the Hudson, when there was limited social media and not the instant worldwide publicity we have now, so less people knew about it.
