All the news this morning seems focused on that miraculous plane landing yesterday on the Hudson, and it really is pretty impressive what that pilot pulled off. I will leave it to the oddsmakers to figure out what the chances are of something like that happening with no fatalities, but I would bet they are pretty long odds. The crew deserves a hand, too, as it appears they had those people out of there in an orderly fashion in no time. All of this has been said before, and probably better, so let me move to the things that I find interesting.

1.) The NTSB is sending 20 people to investigate the wreck. I am not sure what it is, but I am fascinated by these guys (and talk about them every chance I get). My question- what do they do all year when there are not big crashes like this? Are they folks who have other jobs and are on call? Or are there enough wrecks of minor note that they are kept busy that way until the big one?

2.) The plane apparently had something called a ditch switch, which the pilot his in situations just like this one and the entire underbelly of the plane is then sealed. That is why the plane was especially buoyant. Are these on most planes? The last time I flew, I remembered thinking to myself that the airlines must have spent billions of dollars on design and engineering on all the little safety things that, in the life of a plane, will probably never ever get used, but sure do make a difference when you need it. This seems to be one of them. At any rate, about that ditch switch- never heard of it before. Any pilots out there who can elaborate?

3.) I can not believe more folks have not had to be treated for hypothermia. The bitter cold and the water yesterday seems like a classic case of the Siberian dilemma.