RAOK: Surviving the US Airways Splashdown

From now on, we will think more about the consequences of sitting in the emergency row on our next flight. As many of us viewed on our televisions and the Internet today, US Airways Flight 1549 landed on the Hudson River after leaving New York's LaGuardia Airport at approximately 3:00 p.m. ET. Miraculously, everyone survived. So did the Airbus A320, which at last report was floating down the Hudson and finally ended its journey resting against barriers at Battery Park.

Random Acts of Kindness prevailed at the crash scene, with swiftly arriving commute ferries boarding survivors, as the ferry passengers shared coats (temperatures were in the low 20s) and their cell phones with traumatized passengers from the flight. It amazes me to once again see New Yorkers sharing random acts of kindness to help each other through tragedy.

Passenger Jeff Kolodajy, 31, of Norwalk, Conn., spoke to the Newark Star-Ledger. "Everyone's fine. There was a lady with her baby and she was trying to crawl over the seats. And I said, 'women and children first.' She got off," said Kolodajy, who praised the pilot's safe landing of the jet. "I tell you what. It says a lot about people. He knew we were going down," Kolodajy said. "The engine blew out about three minutes, we circled around to the Hudson. Pilot said, 'look, we're going down.' We looked at one another and said prayers."

Passenger Alberto Panero told Wolf Blitzer at CNN about helping passengers evacuate through the front exits of the plane as passengers became congested at the over-wing emergency exits. He stayed on board as he assisted in the evacuation and helped people board the emergency slides that double as rafts.

All in all, it is quite a miracle that everyone survived. The numerous heroes from this event exhibited so many acts of kindness it is difficult to take inventory.

Please feel free to share any hero stories relating to the accident with us at Tonic News. You can read more about the crash here, or just about anywhere in the media right now.