There is currently a commercial airplane in New York City’s Hudson River (it looks to be a small regional jet, which generally carry about thirty passengers and three crew). The plane is intact, its fuselage only partially submerged–a hopeful sign for its passengers. No word yet on what caused what seems to have been an intentional water landing.
I’ve argued before that cable news shouldn’t be in the business of breaking news, since it’s generally less nimble than the Web–but I’m noting that, while MSNBC began airing ongoing coverage of the story about five minutes ago, the NYT, the WaPo, and Drudge still have no mention of it.
Update: MSNBC is reporting that the plane–a US Airways flight from LaGuardia, bound for Charlotte–had, in fact, 146 passengers and five crew members onboard. They’re being evacuated from the plane; no word on any casualties, but the rescue effort looks calm. Reports are also saying the water landing was brought about by the plane’s collision, just after takeoff, with a flock of geese. (And the NYT’s City Room blog now has the story, teased on the paper’s homepage. And Drudge and the WaPo are now each leading with it.)
Update II: MSNBC reports: all passengers have been evacuated–alive–from the plane’s fuselage.
Update III: At 4:21, about fifty minutes after the plane went down–and about forty-five minutes after the first cable coverage–the NYT put the story in the lead slot on its homepage.
Megan Garber is an assistant editor at the Nieman Journalism Lab at Harvard University. She was formerly a CJR staff writer.