An Irishman's Diary

HAVING TO fly from Las Vegas to New York the day after the “Miracle on the Hudson”, I found myself taking a new and intense interest in the migratory habits of North American geese.

Folk wisdom was no comfort. According to the New York Times, there was every chance that the birds, unlike lightning, could strike twice. In fact, the Canada geese suspected of sabotaging Flight 1549 were apparently recidivist offenders against aircraft, albeit usually in smaller numbers, causing nothing more than inconvenience.

Geese aside, the Times assured nervous fliers that, with three major airports close to wetlands and wildlife reserves, New York was a “high-risk region for bird strikes” generally.

Attempts to police the problem ranged from intimidation – the deployment of falcons – to contraception: raiding nests and covering the eggs with vegetable oil to prevent them hatching. Outright slaughter was a regular tactic too.

Rikers Island, near which Flight 1549 was passing when hit, has been the site of a sustained geese cull in recent years. The numbers killed went from 500 in 2004 down to 77 in 2008, suggesting the threat to aircraft had reduced accordingly. But that was before last week.

All-told, the real risks posed to our plane seemed bad enough without me having to worry about the superstitions to which, like many fliers, I become vulnerable in airports.

As we began our descent into New York, I was haunted by the knowledge that, in a restaurant in Las Vegas the night before, I had eaten foie gras. Worse than that: “Hudson Valley foie gras”.

Yes, the waiter had told me, it was the New York Hudson. He also said the dish was made from ducks rather than geese. But flying into JFK, this was no consolation.

I cursed the decadent atmosphere of Las Vegas that had made me choose foie gras over all the other starters on the menu. Geese were a threat to the plane without any provocation. Now, thanks to me, they had a motive.

AT FOSSETTS Circus over Christmas, I saw a spectacle called “El Globo de la Muerte” (“The globe of death”). From Latin America, it comprised a spherical metal cage, inside which motorcyclists performed dizzying stunts. And in the best circus tradition, the ring-master assured us in advance just how dangerous the globe was.

“It may look like just a big hunk of metal,” she said. “But don’t be fooled. It has killed before.” The hype was not necessary on this occasion. El Globo really did look like a health hazard. But in my experience, anyway, being told in advance that a circus act is dangerous tends to have the opposite effect than intended.

You can never quite believe that Nadia is attempting a reverse somersault on the high wire while juggling fire, or whatever, for the first time ever. And either way, if the stunt was unusually dangerous, they wouldn’t have to tell you. You would surely sense the tension from other clues: the paleness of the performers’ faces; the ring-master’s strained smile; the fact that the clown has his fingers crossed behind him.

Silence can be more eloquent than any amount of hype. And for its ability to inspire fear in an audience, it is especially effective on a plane.

I know that when the cockpit goes quiet during take-offs, landings, or severe turbulence, it’s because the pilot is concentrating, and this is a good thing. But those long-drawn-out approaches for which JFK is famous can be very unsettling during darkness or bad weather. So even if it is to share his concerns (“We can’t see a damn thing up here!”), I always like to hear the pilot’s voice as much as possible.

This is not to say that, as a passenger on Flight 1549, I would have wanted the proposed landing on the Hudson to be announced circus-style: “And now, ladies and gentlemen, something that has never been successfully attempted anywhere in the history of aviation. . .” But perhaps some grim humour might have helped. “This plane may look like a precision piece of aerodynamic engineering,” I can hear Capt Sullenberger say. “But don’t be fooled. It’s just a big hunk of metal really.”

IN MANHATTAN on Sunday morning, I went downtown to see for the first time the Irish Famine memorial.

Erected in 2002, this is – as I had read – one of the most extraordinary sights in New York: featuring a ruined Irish cottage on a quarter-acre of land, tilted and seeming to hover over the pavement on a stone-and-glass pedestal. It’s as if a small piece of Mayo was torn loose in a storm, blown across the Atlantic and dropped, intact, among the soaring office buildings of Battery Park.

That the monument was covered in snow on Sunday only added to its dramatic impact. It could have been a scene from the terrible winter of 1847.

Still marvelling at the spectacle, a few yards away, I rounded a corner on to the river-front. And suddenly I found myself in the middle of a media village: camera crews, satellite vans, reporters asking onlookers what they thought, etc. For – lo – right there in front of us, was Flight 1549: newly fished out of the Hudson and back on dry ground. Shorn of one of its engines, with its front door hanging off, it looked about as air-worthy as the Famine monument. And in its own way, it too was an extraordinary thing to witness.