US Airways returns baggage to passengers aboard splash-landed Flight 1549

Passengers of the US Airways Flight 1549 which “splash-landed” in the icy Hudson River, near New York, the United states, have started getting their bags and other belongings back about four months after their miraculous escape. According to a report in The New York Times, US Airways, based in Tempe, Arizona, the United States, has begun returning the passengers’ belongings that were left behind on the flight.

In a very rare and dramatic escape, all the 150 passengers and 5 crew members on board the US Airways Flight 1549 had escaped when the crippled plane made a
splash-landing in the Hudson River near New York on January 15, 2009.

The report in The New York Times said that “while some items are being returned in good shape, others are ruined, but all are carefully wrapped in tissue paper and
snuggled in sheets of fabric softener, as though their owners had died.”

“For each passenger of the US Airways Flight 1549,” the report continued, “it seems that there has been at least one item that matters far beyond its material value
and is worth the unsettling memories its return arouses.”

However, many passengers complained that cash was missing from the belongings that were returned to them.

According to the report in The New York Times, passengers who have received some of their luggage said they were “grateful, but not all of them are ready to absolve US Airways of the responsibility for injuries, emotional distress and losses they claim to have suffered.”

Meanwhile, AIG, the insurance company of US Airways, has started offering $10,000 to each of the passengers of Flight 1549 in exchange for agreeing not to sue the airline, US media reports quoted some of the passengers as saying.

A few days after the accident, US Airways had sent each passenger a ticket refund and a sum of $5,000 by way of immediate compensation.

The United States Aviation Disaster Family Assistance Act requires that, when a fatal airline crash happens, the airline concerned should return the passengers’ possessions to their families.

But since there was no fatality aboard the US Airways Flight 1549, that rule did not apply in this case.

US Airways had assigned Global-BMS, a company based in a Fort Worth, Texas, the United States, that specialises in disaster recoveries, to tow the plane out of the Hudson River and place it on a barge to be inspected by investigators.