US Airways jet makes landing in by City A US Airways Airbus A320, Flight 1549, has made an landing in the Hudson after a failed attempt to take off near Manhattan. There were 148 passengers and five crew on the flight to Charlotte from LaGuardia Airport. The took off at 3:26 PM EST (UTC-5) and went down minutes later. All aboard survived the landing. The United States has reported that they have sent units to the scene of the incident, and that a nearby was giving life jackets to survivors. According to witnesses, the landed in the , making a large splash in the water, at a somewhat gradual angle. "This looked like a controlled descent," said Bob Read, who witnessed the incident from his office. A source told The Wall Street that the initially was maneuvering to make an landing at nearby Teterboro Airport in but lost too much altitude and had to ditch in the . Unconfirmed reports cite the pilot as saying that the encountered a of and that some of them went into both of the jet's engines, leading to a loss of powered flight. Passengers told the press that they heard a loud bang shortly after takeoff. A official said that the was airborne for only three minutes. For these rare water landings, pilots are trained to bring the down as they would on land, but with the landing gear still retracted.