All I can say is it was a long day

A US Airways plane crashed into the frigid Hudson River on Thursday afternoon after striking a bird that disabled two engines, sending 150 on board scrambling onto rescue boats, authorities say. No deaths or serious injuries were immediately reported.

Federal Aviation Administration spokeswoman Laura Brown says the US Airways Flight 1549 had just taken off from LaGuardia Airport enroute to Charlotte, N.C., when the crash occurred in the river near 48th Street in midtown Manhattan.

Brown says the plane, an Airbus 320, appears to have hit one or more birds.

A law enforcement official said that authorities are not aware of any deaths and that the passengers do not appear to be seriously injured. The official spoke on condition of anonymity because the rescue was still under way.

The plane was submerged in the icy waters up to the windows. Rescue crews had opened the door and were pulling passengers in yellow life vests from the plane. Several boats surrounded the plane, which appeared to be slowly sinking.

Government officials do not believe the crash is related to terrorism.

"There is no information at this time to indicate that this is a security-related incident," Homeland Security spokeswoman Laura Keehner said. "We continue to closely monitor the situation which at present is focused on search and rescue."

Witnesses said the plane's pilot appeared to guide the plane down.

"I see a commercial airliner coming down, looking like it's landing right in the water," said Bob Read, who saw it from his office at the television newsmagazine "Inside Edition."

"This looked like a controlled descent."

New York City EMT's and Paramedics responded to the crash.

Nightmare Hospital
"Woodhull Hospital"
Distraught family members say Carolyn Fraiser Atta, a mother of four daughters, arrived at Woodhull Hospital in Brooklyn at 3 p.m. Tuesday complaining of shortness of breath; was admitted; and given a nebulizer used to treat asthma.

They say she then was not seen by a doctor or nurse until seven hours later, around 10 p.m. Two hours after that, Frasier Atta was dead.

"They robbed us of a mother; they robbed us of a sister; they robbed us of a friend, an aunt," said Atta's daughter, Ashley Omoarukhe.

Her older brother, Melvin Fraiser says he had tried repeatedly to get a doctor to see his sister.

She didn't have anything. No oxygen tank or anything, said Frasier. "She was just laying on the bed waiting to see a doctor.

One of her daughter's, an EMT, says her mother should have been seen by a doctor immediately because she had shortness of breath.

If vital signs were done, even just auscultation, the nurses would have detected fluid in the lungs," said Ashley Omoarukhe.

Fraiser says his sister was talking and coherent when she left the hospital around 7 p.m. The family phone rang after midnight.

They called my sister Ashley at 12:25 in the morning. She was home alone and told her over the phone. They did not know if she was a child or a minor," said Monica Omoarukhe. "They didn't ask her, they didn't know if she was an elderly person. They called her said 'Is this, who you are? You're the daughter? Your mother went under cardiac arrest she did not make it.

When they arrived at the hospital, the family says a nurse took them aside and advised them to get counsel.

"A nurse said, 'you know what, between us, and I don't want to put this on record, you need to get a lawyer. You're mom should not have been sitting there not able to breath and not been attended to.