Video footage of US Airways crash landing released

Yesterday, we told you that President Bush and President-elect Obama both called US Airways captain Chesley "Sully" Sullenberger to praise him for the heroic landing of Flight 1549.

It's easy to understand why the most powerful leaders of the country would take time out of their schedule to make the call after seeing the videos and pictures following the successful crash landing and hearing the stories of the passengers.

Video released

This morning surveillance video footage of the landing from the Coast Guard has been released (see below).

Although it's not great footage of the landing -- it's footage. And barring any other video that has yet to be made public, this could be the best we're going to see.

Regardless, it's dramatic.

Timeline

The plane enters the picture video at about the 2:15 mark.

At around the 2:40, the operator of the camera begins to zoom in on the aircraft and the video appears to show passengers already exiting the plane.

Within a minute, dozens of people appear standing on the wings.

The first ferry approaches at around the six-minute mark.

A second ferry arrives at around the eight-minute mark and passengers appear to be rescued 15 seconds later.

More on the video
The video was captured by Coast Guard Vessel Traffic Service. The purpose of a VTS is to provide active monitoring and navigational advice for vessels in particularly confined and busy waterways.