'We're gonna be in the Hudson...'

Captain Sullenberger, “Ah, this is, uh, Cactus 1539, hit birds, we lost thrust in both engines; we’re turning back towards La Guardia.” The tone is not far from normal in the chatter between pilots and controllers, a conversation that has its own etiquette and grammar, in which every exchange begins with the crew identifying the airplane, and every altitude, heading and other clearance is supposed to be read back for confirmation.

In the recording, Captain Sullenberger’s voice is deep and a bit gravelly, with a brisk cadence and clipped syntax that is normal for communications between cockpits and controllers. If there was a sign of stress, it was that the captain fumbled his call sign; “Cactus” is the correct sign for US Airways, but he was Flight 1549, not 1539.

The controller replied instantly, “O.K., yeah, you need to return to La Guardia; turn left heading of, uh, 220,” that is, to the left. Captain Sullenberger acknowledged, and instantly the controller, in a windowless radar room at the New York Terminal Radar Approach Control on Long Island, used a land line to reach the control tower. “Tower, stop your departures. We got an emergency returning,” he said.

The controller’s voice was urgent but not evidently stressed, until he, too, bungled the call sign, calling it “1529.”

The controller turned his attention back to the plane. “Cactus 1529, if we can get it to you, do you want to try to land Runway 1-3?”

Captain Sullenberger was in the unusual position of both flying an airliner and working the radio; talking on the radio is normally the job of the other pilot, but in this case the first officer, Jeffrey B. Skiles, was running through an “engine restart checklist.”

“We’re unable. We may end up in the Hudson,” Captain Sullenberger replied, at 3:28:11, less than a minute after his first communication about the unfolding emergency.

The controller offered him directions to the runway.

“Unable,” Captain Sullenberger responded, in standard pilot phraseology.

The other La Guardia runway was also available, the controller said, and Captain Sullenberger replied, “I am not sure if we can make any runway,” and asked about “anything in New Jersey, maybe Teterboro.” Given a routing there, he replied, “We can’t do it.”

“O.K.,” said the controller. “Which runway would you like at Teterboro?”

“We’re gonna be in the Hudson,” the captain replied. He never used the word “emergency,” although the controllers in the radar room on Long Island and the towers at La Guardia and Teterboro reacted instantly as they were drawn into the problem.

His last communication was at 3:29:28, a few hundred feet over the Hudson.