Michael Duffy was just two weeks into his new role as boat captain on the Circle Line Sightseeing Cruises when he gave the order rescue airline passengers following the “Miracle on the Hudson” emergency landing of US Airways Flight 1549.
“They were lucky,” Duffy told The Post this week, 16 years after that infamous Jan. 15, 2009 water landing. “Because a couple of days before, there was ice in the river and a couple of days after there was ice in the river.
“Timing is everything,” added Duffy, now a five-decade employee of the Big Apple company. “It just happened to be clear, otherwise it would be a problem for the plane … It would’ve probably ripped the bottom open.”
Flight 1549 took off from LaGuardia Airport in Queens and was en route to Charlotte, North Carolina when the plane struck a flock of Canada geese — causing engine failure and forcing pilot Chelsey “Sully” Sullenberger to direct the plane on the Hudson River.
FDNY officials told the newly-minted captain about the plane’s crash-landing in the Hudson as dozens of tourists were already boarding his boat for a scheduled trip, Duffy recalled.
“My first official order was to throw 51 paying customers off the [Circle Line] boat,” he said.
New York Waterways and Circle Line were the first to respond to the crash, with the tourist boats taking flight passengers aboard just minutes after the plane hit the water about 3:31 p.m. The 155 airplane passengers escaped the aircraft on its wings and emergency slides.
FDNY and NYPD first responders were transported aboard Duffy’s vessel to bring them closer to the plane; the boat also deployed three divers that went into the aircraft to check for any additional passengers — none were found.
The main deck of the boat was used as a medical triage outpost with stretchers and stayed with the aircraft until the coast guard arrived.
“The irony is, even with all the excitement that you think would be going on, you could hear a pin drop,” Duffy said. “Nobody was pushing or shoving each other. Everyone wanted to help.”
In total, 14 New York Waterway ferries scooped up 143 passengers, and the US Coast Guard and FDNY saved the remaining passengers and crew members.
Duffy believes his prior experience as a captain prepared him for emergency situations – from a sightseeing helicopter crash in the river to fires to drowning rescues – as well as his 53 years as a firefighter in his hometown of Palisades Park, New Jersey.
The New York Harbor also runs in his family, as Duffy’s father was a captain with Circle Line — and Duffy began as a ticket-seller before getting his captain’s license at 22 years old.
“We always have a [Circle Line] boat somewhere that’s involved with something,” Duffy said. “It was a normal day: you have people jump off of bridges next to us, people try to swim across the river that we rescue as well. [A rescue] like that, it’s pretty normal.”
As a firefighter in the Garden State, Duffy reports he does “the same thing when I’m in traffic.”
“When there’s an accident, I jump out of the car and go help,” he said. “It’s just the nature of my being.”
Despite all the changes around the Big Apple in the 16 years since the Miracle on the Hudson, Duffy contends the New York Harbor community has remained tight-knit and there for each other in times of need.
“Although we’re competitors, we’re not competitors to a certain extent, professionally,” Duffy added. “We all do what we have to do and help each other. That’s what we’re here for.”
To the longtime port captain, the 2009 rescue wouldn’t have been possible without the “small community” that works out of the harbor daily.
“It’s just another one of the events that humanity is actually human, that people come together – [the world] is not as negative as what you see and what you hear,” he said.
