Plane crashes into Hudson River

..still wondering about butrflynet's idea of a screen..

Modern jet engines have the capability of surviving an ingestion of a bird. Small fast planes, such as military jet fighters, are at higher risk than big heavy multi-engine ones. This is due to the fact that the fan of a high-bypass turbofan engine, typical on transport aircraft, acts as a centrifugal separator to force ingested materials (birds, ice, etc.) to the outside of the fan's disc. As a result, such materials go through the relatively unobstructed bypass duct, rather than through the core of the engine, which contains the smaller and more delicate compressor blades.

I was reading in the German papers that due to the lower wings of the Airbus,
the plane was able to stay afloat longer. Boeing planes have their wings much
higher, thus the plane would have sank immediately.

I don't know if that's true, Jane - all the hydroplanes I ever saw had very high wing configurations. The one I used to fly didn't have pontoons, just landed on its belly - and had 2 (two) bilge pumps as essential onboard equipment. It was a single-engine, though, maybe for jets that wouldn't work.

In this case, the plane that went down Thursday was an Airbus 320, which has a low wing. This allowed most of the fuselage to remain above water, contributing to the aircraft's buoyancy, he said.

Yeah, but the floor of the passenger compartment is above the upper surface of the wing on both aircraft types. It just doesn't matter.

... but Boeing being american and
Airbus european, there is a certain extend of bias here, isn't it?

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