Blogger: U.S. Airways way to fly

I'll bet some of you were thinking when you saw the passengers being pulled from the wrecked U.S. Airways jet in the Hudson River that you would probably never fly again. I have a different viewpoint.

The day before the Hudson incident, I was talking to a friend who told me that she always flies Delta, but no flights were available so she recently came from Connecticut to Charlotte, N.C., where she would change planes for the final leg to Orlando via U.S.Airways.

She got to Charlotte on time but the connecting flight was delayed for about three hours. Later she learned that the delay had occurred because the plane she was due to take the rest of the way to Florida had lost its landing gear on descent into Charlotte. The pilot put that plane on the ground with some scratches but no passenger injuries at all. The delay was waiting for another plane to fly her south.

The day after our conversation, I turned on the television and there was a U.S.Airways plane floating in the Hudson with passengers standing on the wings. My first inclination was to never fly that airline, but then the story slowly started coming out about the pilot’s last minute decision to make the water landing and how he glided that plane just right so it would float longer and no lives were lost. The passengers all herald him as a hero and that he is.

By then, putting all this together in my head what I was thinking was that if I decide to fly anywhere anytime soon, I will be on a U. S. Airways plane.

They obviously have some of the best pilots, co-pilots and flight attendants in the business. They have had no serious crashes according to recent news reports and if there were any incidents the pilots and staff have kept order and gotten passengers out calmly and safely. They are obviously well trained and I’d want them on my flight if problems arose.

So, don’t count them out. Look at the positive here -- not the negative -- and fly safely out there.