It was 5:36 in the morning, local time. They were at 39,000 feet on a clear black night, with stars overhead but nothing more in sight. Piché decided to backtrack to the nearest airport, on Terceira Island, in the Azores, about 400 miles to the southwest. He made the turn, and advised Oceanic Control of the situation. It was 5:48 a.m. Around this time the senior flight attendant entered the cockpit to discuss the passenger services that would be required in Lisbon. Piché warned her of the low-fuel condition, and of the precautionary diversion to the Azores. She left to inform the cabin crew and secure the galleys. Several minutes later she returned, and Piché told her to prepare for a ditching. A ditching is a water landing. In a jet airliner, a ditching at night in the Atlantic means near-certain death, no matter how good the airplane is or who is flying it. The flight attendant went back and calmly instructed the cabin crew to prepare for passenger demonstrations.

It was now 6:06 a.m., a half-hour since the first sign of trouble, and still pitch-black outside. Seven minutes later, at 6:13 a.m., the right engine quietly flamed out, and the airplane began a gentle descent from 39,000 feet, still 170 miles from the airport. The passengers would have been unaware of anything unusual had not the cabin crew suddenly taken up positions in the aisles, with the lights up full bright, and begun instructing people to put on the life vests that were stored under the seats. This is not a pleasant way to be woken up on a transatlantic flight, and the mood was not exactly calm, but the passengers maintained sufficient self-restraint at least to get the vests on. As the airplane settled through 37,000 feet, Piché spotted the lights of the island about 140 miles ahead.

But at 6:26 a.m., 13 minutes into the single-engine descent, the left engine used up the last of the fuel, and the A330 became a glider. Piché responded with French profanity. They were 90 miles from the airport, trimmed to a book value for best gliding speed, and descending at about 1,200 feet a minute. From the underside of the airplane an emergency windmill known as a ram air turbine automatically extended into the slipstream and began spinning to provide backup hydraulic power and the minimum of electricity. In the cabin, the regular lights flickered and went out, and the dim emergency lighting came on. This did not go over well with the passengers. To make matters worse, the public-address system began to fail (normally a blessing, but inconvenient here). Five minutes later, as the cabin pressure leaked away, the oxygen masks automatically dropped, and this caused another round of fussing. Up in the cockpit, the situation was more sober, but also quite rough. Piché and the co-pilot were so busy that they did not put on their oxygen masks. They had lost most of the airplane’s electronics and flat-panel displays, and were flying with degraded controls which offered little of the assistance normally provided by the A330 to its crews. Later, Piché implied that his entire life had led up to this moment in flight—a tautology that seems to have become standard in such cases. He even included prison in the progression, and credited it for teaching him not to shy away from realities, however grim.

Not that he had a choice. At 6:31 a.m., while gliding down through the night, 27,000 feet high and 38 miles from the airport, he checked in with Approach Control, and requested that the runway lights be flashed. At 6:39 he arrived nine miles off the approach end of the runway, and 13,000 feet high. Being high allowed for plenty of maneuvering for flight-path control. It introduced room for piloting errors but also for piloting skills, and took away the element of chance. Piché swept the airplane into a descending 360-degree turn during which he extended the leading-edge slats and lowered and locked the landing gear. He straightened out from the turn at 8,000 feet on a long final approach. The runway ahead was 10,866 feet long. It was outlined in lights. Piché saw that he was high, and put the Airbus through a series of S-turns, like switchbacks, much as some F-4 pilots might have wanted to do when flamed-out, if only they had been allowed. Piché was flying at F-4 speeds or faster, though with descent rates much lower. In the cabin the flight attendants were screaming “Brace! Brace! Brace!” to the terrified passengers. The airplane crossed the runway threshold doing 230 miles an hour, slammed against the pavement about a thousand feet along, bounced back into the air, and floated for another 1,770 feet until Piché goddamned planted that airplane down to stay, and locked the brakes. The planting did not drive the landing gear through the wings, but it was hard enough to wrinkle the fuselage. The locked tires slid for about 400 feet, then abraded and deflated, leaving the airplane to grind to a halt on the ruins of its wheels. It was 6:46 a.m., at the end of a world-record, 20-minute, 34,500-foot, 90-mile, 306-person, engines-out airline glide. The passengers evacuated down the slides. Piché followed, and walked around the airplane. The wheels were destroyed. Jesus Fuck Me Mother Mary. Piché returned to a hero’s welcome in Canada, where at first he ducked the publicity, then learned to enjoy it and seek it out. He accepted multiple awards, authorized an official biography entitled Robert Piché: Hands on Destiny (available in French or English, autographed), built an official Captain Robert Piché Web site, to which you may provide your e-mail address (“Captain Piché activities: be informed!”), and set himself up as an inspirational speaker for business groups (teamwork and resolve) and schools (excitement about aviation). It turned out that Captain Piché was quite a speaker. He returned to flying, however, because flying, goddamn it, is what he best knows.

VI. The Choices

Captain Sullenberger does not swear. Furthermore, the closer he gets to airplanes, the more straitlaced he becomes. You can hear it in his transmissions to the New York radar controller immediately after losing thrust. He was calm, concentrated, and completely appropriate. The airplane had been climbing to the north and had hit the geese around 3,000 feet. Sullenberger had just taken over from Skiles. The controller knew none of it yet. He wanted to send the flight west, and then on toward Charlotte. He said, “Cactus 1549, turn left, heading two seven zero.” Sullenberger answered tightly, “Ah, this is, uh, Cactus 1549, hit birds. We lost thrust in both engines. We’re turning back towards La Guardia.” His voice was clear. He was hand-flying the turn, holding the airplane at its best gliding speed, and coordinating the re-start attempts with First Officer Skiles. Skiles is a former 737 captain who was required to fly as co-pilot again because of reductions in the US Airways ranks. Fuck it, the airlines. Come what may, this was going to be a competent operation. And the controller was cool for the game. He said, “O.K., yeah, you need to return to La Guardia. Turn left, heading of, uh, two two zero.” Sullenberger confirmed, “Two two zero.” The controller picked up the phone to La Guardia Tower. He said, “Tower, stop your departures. We got an emergency returning.”