by Rick Knight, New York

The recent water landing in the Hudson River of US Air flight 1549 by Captain Chelsey Sullenberger garnered international attention as news and video from the event went viral and global. Not only was it a major feat for an emergency water landing in which every single person on board, passenger and crew, survived, but that within precious minutes of the jet hitting the icy waters, speed boats and ferries were en route to assist. Less than a minute after the aircraft came to a stop, passengers were already filing out onto its massive wings, buoyed by the hundreds of gallons of fuel on board. The shaken passengers huddled together in the freezing January morning, the dry streets of Manhattan only a few hundred yards away. But they were alive!

Not only did Capt. Sullenberger pull off one for the record books, the behavior of all involved was nothing short of a true testament to the ability of people to come together in a crisis and support one another in the highest and most altruistic sense.  It was a miracle, it was an inspiration to us all, and boy, did we need it!

We needed something to remind us that a crash doesn’t always mean disaster, whether it’s a jet airliner or a financial market collapse. We can see from the coast guard footage of how quickly and consciously people can come together to help one another. Like many other frequent flyers, I tend to ignore the safety demonstration given by the flight attendants that are presented for my instruction and well-being. I have to wonder how many people were paying attention that morning. Or were they just glad to get out of Laguardia and on their way, taking the miracle of flight, completely for granted, already planning far ahead to what they were going to do at their destination. Buckled into their seats, none of them entertained their flight’s imminent rendezvous with a much less fortunate flock of geese.

Being immersed in ice water has a way of waking you up quickly. In a city that has long-standing residual trauma associated with the crashes of jet aircraft, how wondrous it must’ve been to see nearly every human being on that flight not only survive but walk to their own freedom! Flight 1549 did not crash. By a number of strokes of good luck, it landed safely on the water! With its full load of passengers, some 50 tons fell from a few thousand feet in the sky, skimmed onto the Hudson River with precision.

Let each of us take a few minutes and just bask in the gratitude of the miracle of Flight 1549! Not just the miracle of a safe water landing, but the miracle of flight we so casually enjoy that gets us thousands of miles in a matter of hours, the miracle of information traveling at the speed of light around this massive globe, the miracle of people coming together and helping one another in a crisis and the miracle that there’s still so much yet to experience in a world of abundance. We need only allow it to be so.