'Miracle on the Hudson' survivors gather

The survivors of US Airways Flight 1549 know each other by their seat numbers, but you'd know them by their smiles.

About 20 passengers, their family members and the air traffic controller from that flight clinked wine glasses and caught up with each other Saturday for the second anniversary of the "Miracle on the Hudson."

As jazz lilted through a private room at Coppola's East restaurant in the Kips Bay section of Manhattan, Patrick Harten, 36, of Long Beach, said this would probably become an annual gathering.

"We've shared the same event," said Harten, an air traffic controller who spoke to pilot Chesley "Sully" Sullenberger in the minutes before the plane splashed down. "A lot of people have a second chance at life. Now you're with a group of people who appreciate everything, who take nothing for granted."

On Jan. 15, 2009, Sullenberger and first officer Jeff Skiles ditched the plane into the frigid waters off Manhattan after the jet hit a flock of geese. All 155 passengers and crew members were rescued.

For about half an hour after the plane landed in the Hudson, Harten feared everyone was dead, and "a part of me would have died with them," he said.

Stephen Lis, 44, a management consultant from Philadelphia, said the experience tied them together.

"There are going to be people here that I have not met, but there's a common bond," said Lis, who was in seat 14D. "It is emotional, but it's a very happy emotion."

Sarah Nassar, 28, was expecting her mother to come down to Charlotte, N.C., for the birth of her daughter when she got a call from her brother about a plane going down in New York City.

"I called my husband and said, 'My mother's dead.' I was screaming," she recalled.

Her mother, Heyam Kawas, 50, was in seat 9B. She fell into the frigid water twice and was hospitalized, but still flew down to Charlotte two days later to be there when her granddaughter was born.

"I was crying the whole time," Kewas said of the flight.

The survivors who met for lunch Saturday raised their glasses at 3:31 p.m., the minute the plane hit the water.

"It was a very emotional time for all of us who were on the plane and we all texted each other," said Denise Lockie, a Staples executive who sat in 2C.

Lockie, who lives in Charlotte, said she needed to come to New York Saturday because "my heart is here."

Barry Leonard, the chief executive of a home fashion company from Charlotte who was in seat 1C, went to the Hudson River with his mother and counted down to 3:31 p.m.

"It was very emotional," Leonard said. "I was just going through it all in my head . . . how the plane shuddered and the smell of the birds."

"I find myself just being so grateful," he said. "We kid each other that we're 2 years old today because it's a new life."