The Rocky Mountain Collegian

Issue date: 1/21/09 Section: News

Media Credit: Associated Press A crane to be used to move an Airbus 320 US Airways aircraft that crashed into the Hudson River on Thursday is moved past the Statue of Liberty Saturday, Jan. 17, 2009, in New York. Divers and sonar operators hunted for two missing engines from a US Airways jetliner in challenging, nearly impossible conditions as investigators made plans to carefully hoist the damaged plane from the water to retrieve the flight and data recorders. (AP Photo/Frank Franklin II)

NEW YORK (AP) - Authorities using sonar in the search for the missing engine from US Airways Flight 1549 detected something about the size of the massive aircraft part deep in the frigid, murky Hudson River on Tuesday, but divers ran out of daylight before they could locate the object.

Crews will resume their search Wednesday. Police have already located several pieces of debris from the flight, including 35 flotation seat cushions, 12 life jackets, 15 pieces of luggage, two brief cases, 11 purses, 15 suit jackets and shirts, four shoes, and two hats, according to NYPD spokesman Paul Browne.

The missing left engine, however, is the most coveted prize. Investigators will examine it along with the plane's attached right engine to better understand how the jet conked out Thursday after hitting a flock of birds. All 155 people survived the miracle crash landing on the river, and US Airways said Tuesday that not even a pet perished.

New York Police Department harbor officers working with a sonar expert from the National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration got a reading on an object 16 feet long and 8 feet wide in about 60 feet of water north of the Intrepid Sea, Air and Space Museum, near where the plane made its emergency landing. The engine is about the same size as the object picked up by sonar.

Swift currents made it impossible to drop a robotic device with a video camera to confirm whether it is the engine, and evening fell before divers could find anything.

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