Photo by: Daniel Clinton
Manhattanites found their day grinding to a halt Monday afternoon to witness a miraculous display of airborne prowess. A private Cessna Citation Bravo experienced engine failure amid a routine flight from Los Angeles to New York City, just out of range of Laguardia Airport. Without a viable landing strip in sight, a passenger made the heroic decision to rush the cockpit and land the plane directly on the Hudson River. The brave passenger to take this extreme initiative is none other than R&B fan and local blind person, Stevie Wonder.
“I heard a colossal boom, and I knew that something was off,” said Wonder. The engine failure was due to a flock of doves being sucked into the engine. “For a split second, it just sounded like… like DOVES crying,” added Wonder. “I thought to myself, Prince may be gone, but no way is Stevie going out this easy.”
In a high-pressure situation such as this, one would normally call on the pilot to lead the passengers to safety. In this case, however, the pilot had rushed out of the cockpit during the fateful moment to make a call to his wife.
“It was her birthday that day, and with Stevie Wonder on the plane, I was going to ask him to sing ‘I Just Called to Say I Love You’ for her. But, you know, when it’s STEVIE WONDER, you don’t just ask that at take off,” said the pilot. “I was planning on bringing it up after we landed. Once I realized we were going down, I didn’t want to miss my chance.”
Without an engine or a pilot, it fell upon Wonder to ensure the lives of everyone on board, but even he could see that he was not the best choice to pilot the aircraft. “Nobody ever asks Stevie to fly a plane,” said Wonder. “But I believed I could fly, because bats do it all the time.”
Wonder was able to get a hold of the aircraft and control it enough to gently guide it onto the Hudson. “We’re all lucky to be alive. Good thing I always carry around my lucky rabbit’s foot,” added Wonder, removing said rabbit’s foot from his pocket. “I’m very superstitious.”
All of these events are, of course, reminiscent of the Flight 1549 landing on the very same river just seven years prior. When asked if “Sully”, the recent hit film adaptation of the Flight 1549 landing, inspired Wonder to do this, Wonder responded curtly, “I haven’t seen it.”
Written by: Brandon Moguel and Paola Diaz, staff writers
Brandon Mougel is an MQ Alumni
