'Miracle on Hudson' as Jet Crash-Lands

After the crash, the fuselage appeared intact and the plane appeared to be sitting high in the water well after the crash with rescuers standing on the wings once they reached the site.

Joe Mazzone, a retired Delta Air Lines pilot, said it is not unusual for birds to strike planes. In fact, he said, when planes get ready to take off, if there are birds in the area, the tower will alert the crew.

"They literally just choke out the engine and it quits," Mazzone said.

Bank of America(BAC) and Wells Fargo(WFC) say a number of employees of the Charlotte-based companies were on board.

Wells Fargo spokeswoman Mary Eshet said Thursday that three employees were on board. A Bank of America spokeswoman, Nicole Nastacie, said the bank was confirming the whereabouts of its employees and working with authorities to gather more information.

Twenty-seven years ago this week, an Air Florida plane bound for Tampa crashed into the Potomac River after hitting a bridge just after takeoff from Washington National Airport. The crash on Jan. 13, 1982, killed 78 people including four people in their cars on the bridge. Five people on the plane survived.

On Dec. 20, a Continental Airlines plane veered off a runway and slid into a snowy field at the Denver airport, injuring 38 people. That was the first major crash of a commercial airliner in the United States since Aug. 27, 2006, when 49 people were killed after a Comair jetliner mistakenly took off from the wrong runway in Lexington, Ky.

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