Three to One – Vanity Fair – Anatomy of a Miracle
Chris Mueller Photo Illustration from three images - Chad Slattery - Interior, Ismael Jorda/Ait Team Images pilot and my aerial of the Hudson
Anatomy of a Miracle – US Airways 1549
In late March, Vanity Fair called and asked me to shoot aerials of the Hudson river for a piece on Capt. Chesley “Sully” Sullenberger, the US Airways pilot who landed an Airbus 320 in the Hudson river after ingesting geese into the engines and the behind the scenes look at how this miracle happened..
The story is much richer than a one-person profile; William Langewiesche wove in the reality of Canadian Geese flocks near airports , the turbo fans, the glide ratio of the 320, the engineers who designed the engines and aircraft and most of all, the incredible textbook landing of Flight 1549 on the Hudson.
The idea behind the shoot was to follow his exact flight path and shoot aerials from the same angle of descent and altitude. The helicopter pilot and I did a pre-brief by phone and I sent him the GPS and altitude coordinates for the flight. He worked out the details with Laquardia and two other air spaces we needed to cross for our flight. Since I was shooting two months after the event, I needed to match my light with the light the day of the landing. I matched the angle of the light as close as possible by using sun plotting software. The goal was to recreate the view from the cockpit as the aircraft descended toward the river.
My friend Chad Slattery flew to Arizona to photograph the flight deck of an Airbus 320 so Chris Mueller could put the images together as an photo illustration. Ismael Jorda/Ait Team Images created the photograph of the pilots that completed the image.
What I liked about this assignment was working with Ian Bacsetta, an Associate Photo Editor at Vanity Fair and my friend Chad. Ian had a very clear idea of what he wanted me to shoot and how it would all come together. Ian and I talked about weather, light, helicopter altitudes and my ideas on how to create the image. Chad and I spoke about my images and how he would approach the interior views to create a sense of being there for the reader.
The pilot I worked with flies primarily in New York and New Jersey and only for aerial photography. He knows the airspace and he enjoyed the challenge of making this shoot happen. I started shooting near Columbia University a little above 2000 feet and finished up at five feet off the deck near the piers where the aircraft landed. The river was full of water taxis and cargo vessels. Not only did Captain Sully and his crew have to land a unpowered aircraft in the middle of a tidal river he needed to set his glide path to make sure he did not swamp or hit the boats crossing from New Jersey or Manhattan.
Thanks to Ian for the trust to make this shoot happen, to Chad for his connections within the aviation industry and Chris Mueller for bringing it all together and making it believable.