Two days before US Airways Flight 1549 crashed into the Hudson River, passengers on the same route and same aircraft said they heard a series of loud bangs and the flight crew told them they could have to make an emergency landing, CNN has learned.
Steve Jeffrey of Charlotte, North Carolina, told CNN he was flying in first class on January 13 when, about 20 minutes into the flight, "it sounded like the wing was just snapping off."
He said the incident occurred over Newark, New Jersey, soon after the plane - also flying as Flight 1549 - had taken off from LaGuardia Airport in New York.
"It seemed so loud, like luggage was hitting the side but times a thousand. It startled everyone on the plane. We started looking at each other. The stewardesses started running around. They made an announcement that 'everyone heard the noise, we're going to turn around and head back to LaGuardia and check out what happened,” he recalled.
Expert Aviation Consulting, an Indianapolis, Indiana, private consulting firm that includes commercial airline pilots on its staff, told CNN the plane that landed in the Hudson was the same one as Flight 1549 from LaGuardia two days earlier.
