Flight of Faith: My Miracle on the Hudson (2010) is Frederick Berretta’s inspirational account of US Airways flight 1549, which crashed in the Hudson River on January 15, 2009. The Airbus 320 was scheduled to fly from Laguardia to Charlotte. The airplane struck a flock of Canada geese shortly after takeoff and lost power in both engines. The pilot contacted Laguardia and discussed possible landing scenarios, but determined that he would have to ditch the plane in the river. Everyone on board survived. An official in the National Transportation Safety Board described it as “the most successful ditching in aviation history”.

This book is Frederick Berretta’s personal account of the ditching of the plane, interspersed with his personal spiritual life leading up to and following that moment. Berretta is a businessman that was raised Catholic. Through the course of the book, he describes navigating various low points in his life, including the divorce of his parents, disillusionment after college, loss of a child, and the financial downturn of 2009.

The author attributes the successful ditching of flight 1549 to two things: God’s mercy and the prayers of those aboard. As a Catholic, Berretta describes making “informal prayers” in the last moments before the water landing, as opposed to the formal devotional prayers to which he is accustomed. He reflects throughout the book on changes to his own prayer life through the course of his life.

Berretta is himself an amateur pilot. This gives him some unique perspective as he has some understanding of the crew’s roles and responsibilities in such incidents. He has also had other near misses while flying.

Bird strikes that cause air accidents are rare. Double engine failure due to bird strike is practically undocumented. This was quite a freak accident.

The captain and first officer had a long mental checklist to go through before the water landing. They had to ensure that they did not crash into the Washington Bridge, or any of the many boats on the Hudson River that day. They also had to prevent the plane from stalling, while maintaining an optimized speed and angle of approach to the water. Once landed, passengers and crew had to stave off panic so that they could board life rafts and climb aboard ferries that had come to their rescue.

By grace, the fuselage to the plane remained in tact so that the plane stayed afloat in the icy Hudson River long enough for passengers and crew to evacuate. Berretta writes that available information suggests that the airplane struck the water with three times the force expected to destroy the fuselage of the plane. If it had ruptured, the plane would have filled with water and sank, leaving everyone aboard in near-freezing water.

It is extraordinary that everyone aboard survived. Water ditching has roughly a 50% survival rate across known occurrences. There is only one other known case of a commercial airliner performing a water ditch and everyone surviving, in Leningrad in 1963. This book is a simple, unassuming testimony to God’s grace in answer to prayer, and such testimonies are always welcome.