Hudson plane crash drama unfolds on broadband

Broadband bloggers document US Airways emergency landing in Hudson River in real time

Plane crashes, fortunately, are rare events. But when such a drama unfolds, initial reports generally flash up on major news stations.

But on January 15th 2009, as a seemingly-doomed US Airways plane glided down from 3000 feet towards the Hudson River in New York, shocked eyewitnesses were seconds away from reporting events via broadband.



When the pilot of the Airbus 320, Capt. Sullenberger, landed in the river’s icy-cold water, stunned passengers watching from nearby ferries, some with access to mobile broadband, immediately started typing broadband blog reports of what they were seeing.

It was only minutes before the news and drama was all over microblogging broadband site twitter. At that point, broadband bloggers had no idea if there were any survivors. The Guardian reports New Yorker Janis Krum’s eyewitness account from the broadband site: “There’s a plane in the Hudson. I’m on the ferry going to pick up the people. Crazy.” Krum also used broadband to upload a photo of the plane floating in the river.

Soon after, other broadband ‘twitterers’ picked up the first-hand accounts and a domino-effect directed other broadband friends to them.

Although broadband blog reports are not strictly ‘journalistic’, bystander accounts may convey the real-time shock, relief and emotion more effectively than a delayed news story from a reporter. It also enables bulletins to be virtually instantaneous – transporting a cameraman and journalist to an incident scene can delay reporting.

The ‘Miracle of The Hudson’, in which all 115 passengers survived, is a fine example of broadband taking the conveyance of news to a more immediate and accessible level.