All 155 people on US Airways Flight 1549 climbed onto rescue boats Thursday, shocked but mainly unscathed, relieved to be alive and singing the praises of former fighter pilot Sullenberger.

The carcass of the Airbus A320, tied up at Battery Park of Manhattan on Friday, one wing poking up out of the dark cold river, is now set to become a shrine to Sullenberger's heroics.

The jet had just taken off from New York's La Guardia airport for Charlotte in North Carolina. But the crew told air traffic controllers that the jet hit a flock of geese which knocked out both engines, US media reported.

There was no time to return to La Guardia and no other airport was close enough, so the crew decided to ditch the jet.

"They then cleared the George Washington Bridge by about 900 feet, according to controllers, and at a point near the end of West 48th Street in Midtown Manhattan, the plane slid into the river?s smooth, gray waters," the New York Times reported.

In a few seconds, frantic passengers left the plane and clustered on airplane wings, chilly river water lapping at their feet. Ferryboats steamed to the rescue as the aircraft slowly sank.

One crew member suffered a leg cut and several passengers were treated for exposure to the icy temperatures, local media reported.

Passenger Jeff Kolodjay said he saw the engine blow up. "We thought we were going to circle around, but we didn't have time," he told the Newsday newspaper.

"We hit the water pretty hard"

He heard Sullenberger tell passengers to brace for impact and then said a Hail Mary. "We hit the water pretty hard," Kolodjay told the newspaper ? hard enough for some people to hit their heads on the ceiling.

But once on the river, the doors opened and passengers headed for the wings as water poured into the jet, Kolodjay said.

New York state governor David Paterson described the event as "a miracle on the Hudson."

"It would appear that the pilot did a masterful job of landing the plane in the river, and then making sure that everybody got out," New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg said.

"I had a long conversation with the pilot. He walked the plane twice after everybody else was off. And tried to verify that there was nobody else onboard. And assures us there were not."

Aviation experts interviewed in the US media said that landing the plane at that angle was tricky. Had Sullenberger made a mistake the fuselage would likely have cracked and taken on water upon hitting the river, they said.

President George W. Bush praised the "skill and heroism" of Sullenberger and the other crew.

The passengers said they owed their lives to Sullenberger.

One, Alberto Panero, told CNN television he heard a loud bang just after take-off.

"The plane shook a bit and immediately, you could smell smoke or fire.

"All of a sudden, the captain came on and said, 'Brace for impact' and that's when we knew we were going down, into the water. And we just hit and somehow the plane, you know, stayed afloat and we were all able to get on the raft and ? it's just incredible right now that everybody's still alive."

Another, Fred Beretta, said Sullenberger carried out a "phenomenal landing."

Asked if he had a message for the crew, Beretta said: "Thank you, thank you, thank you. I hope somebody gives you a great big award for your performance."

In safe hands

But the passengers could not have been in safer hands. Sullenberger runs a transport safety consultancy and has clocked up 19 000 hours of flying time in a 40-year-career as a pilot, according to a biography on his website.

The former US Air Force fighter pilot has served as an instructor and safety chairman of the Air Line Pilots Association. He has also participated in several accident investigations for the US National Transportation Safety Board.

John Silcott, a United Airlines pilot with eight years experience of flying the Airbus A320, said Sullenberger's safe landing was "remarkable."

"I would definitely call the guy a hero. To have no fatalities ? that is remarkable," said Silcott, an executive at Expert Aviation Consulting.

Hollywood on the Hudson?

Silcott said the relatively calm waters of the Hudson ? as opposed to the heaving swell faced by a pilot seeking to land a plane on the ocean ? would have assisted Sullenberger.

He added the positioning of the Airbus A320's engines under the wing would have left Sullenberger trying to make the plane land tail first.

"The last thing you want is for the engines, which are under the wing, to dig into the water and push the nose into the water," he said.

"So you'd try and touch down on the tail and keep the nose up as long as possible. So when the plane settles in you're at a slow enough airspeed so it doesn't go nose first. It certainly appears as if he managed to do that."

Eyewitness Troy Keitt (46) told AFP he was so surprised to see the crash he was convinced it was part of a movie being filmed.

"No one was panicking," he told AFP, adding that he had been astonished not to hear screams as people lined up on the wings.

"I know that there's a God because the plane was still all in one piece!" he said.