Passengers Heard Loud Bangs On Flight 1549 Two Days Before Hudson Ditching

The US Airways A320 that lost engine power and ditched in New York's Hudson River last week experienced engine anomalies on the same route two days prior to the January 15 incident, according to passengers.

CNN reports that two days before last Thursday's ditching in the Hudson River, passengers on the same route and flying onboard the very same aircraft -- N106US -- reported hearing a series of loud bangs.

Steve Jeffrey of Charlotte, NC told CNN he was flying in first class Tuesday when, about 20 minutes into the flight, "it sounded like the wing was just snapping off. The red lights started going on. A little pandemonium was going on.

"It seemed so loud, like luggage was hitting the side but times a thousand," he continued. "It startled everyone on the plane. 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.'

"About 10 minutes later when we never made the turn, we kept going, that's when the pilot came on and explained ... the air didn't get to the engine and it stalled the engine out, which he said doesn't happen all the time but it's not abnormal."

Like many things in life, this was less traumatic to passengers who knew what was going on. Another passenger, John Hodock, e-mailed CNN to educate the news service about what likely happened.

"About 20 minutes after take-off, the plane had a series of compressor stalls on the right engine," Hodock wrote, according to the network. "There were several very loud bangs and fire coming out of the engine. The pilot at first told us that we were going to make an emergency landing, but after about five minutes, continued the flight to Charlotte."

In a later interview, Hodock said the pilot, "...came back on and said it was a stalled compressor and they were going to continue to Charlotte."

As the term implies, a compressor stall occurs when airflow over the multiple turbine vanes inside a jet engine is disturbed. In many cases, the malady hardly registers on engine instruments... though in more dramatic cases, loud bangs are heard and flames may even shoot out the back of the engine, as the engine's fuel-to-air mixture goes suddenly over-rich. A complete engine flameout may also occur, requiring an inflight restart.

What possible relation the incident reported January 13 had with Flight 1549 two days later remains to be seen... though given the pilots in Thursday's incident have already stated multiple bird strikes led to the dual engine failure, it seems unlikely at this point the two are related in any meaningful fashion.

Then again... that's what NTSB investigations are for, and this one has just begun.

FMI: www.usairways.com, www.ntsb.gov