UM student among US Airways plane crash survivors

A University of Miami student was among the 155 passengers to survive the crash of US Airways Flight 1549 into the Hudson River yesterday.

“Concerning yesterday’s jet crash in New York’s Hudson River—one of our students was on that plane,” President Donna E. Shalala wrote in an e-mail to the university community this afternoon. “He will graduate in May because he had an angel on his wing and a courageous pilot in the cockpit, and the New York/New Jersey community had an emergency plan that worked.”

The jet’s pilot, Chesley B. Sullenberger III, skillfully ditched the aircraft into the Hudson River, between New York and New Jersey, after losing engine power due to what is believed to be a large flock of birds that flew into the aircraft’s engines upon takeoff from LaGuardia Airport. All passengers and crew members survived the crash, which is now known to many as the “miracle on the Hudson.”

The UM student and survivor is unavailable for comment at this time, a university official said.

“I have been in contact with the student but cannot release the name,” President Shalala wrote in an e-mail to The Miami Hurricane.