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NEW YORK – Thick mud, menacing currents and bone-chilling temperatures stymied investigators Friday as they scoured the Hudson River for the two missing engines from a US Airways jetliner that crash-landed in the water after colliding with birds. The investigation ran into a series of obstacles one day after the pilot ditched the plane carrying 155 people. The collision apparently caused both of the engines to fail, forcing the aircraft to go down just a few hundred yards from the Manhattan skyline. All aboard survived.

Sometime after the plane hit the water, the engines broke off and sank to the bottom, forcing investigators to use sonar to search for them.

Experts said the wreckage could be nearly impossible to find because it is probably 30 to 50 feet down, stuck in mud and obscured by thick sediment. Conditions are so murky that police and fire department divers will have to feel about by hand.

"There is hardly anything to see because of the sediment," said Thomas M. Creamer, chief of the operations division of the New York District of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, one of the groups brought in to help with the search.

The current was especially swift Friday, making it impossible for crews to hoist the aircraft out of the water and remove its flight data recorder and cockpit voice recorder.

Investigators also had yet to interview the pilot, Chesley B. "Sully" Sullenberger.

The pilot's status as a national hero rose by the hour as he took congratulatory calls from the president and president-elect, earned effusive praise from passengers on the plane and become the subject of a growing global fan club. The pilot was in good spirits and showing no outward signs of stress from the ordeal, a pilots union official said.

Crews planned to pull the plane from the water on Saturday before putting it on a barge.

Investigators want to closely inspect the engines to figure out how exactly the birds caused the plane to fail so badly and so fast. They may also examine any feathers remaining in the engine to determine the type of bird species, helping prevent future mishaps.

The type of engine on the Airbus 320 is designed to withstand a 4-pound bird strike, said Jamie Jewell, a spokeswoman for CFM International of Cincinnati, which manufactures the engines. That's fairly typical for commercial airliners and their engines, although larger Canada geese can exceed 12 pounds.

Kitty Higgins, a spokeswoman for the National Transportation Safety Board, also suggested that part of the investigation will be to "celebrate what worked here," something of a rarity for an agency that focuses on figuring out what went wrong in a disaster.

"A lot of things went right yesterday, including the way that not only the crew functioned, but the way the plane functioned."

The investigation began as new details emerged about why the pilot chose to land the plane in the river — and not at two nearby airports. The pilot twice told air controllers that he was unable to make the proper turn after reporting a "double bird strike."

The tower believed Sullenberger meant that both his jet engines had been damaged by bird impacts.

The accident also raised questions about whether airports around the country are doing enough to deal with bird flocks.

The agency that operates New York City's major airports said it has a multimillion-dollar program to chase birds off its property, but can only do so much to protect planes once they are in the air.

The Port Authority of New York and New Jersey said it kills thousands of birds every year in the marshy waterways and tidal flats that surround its two major airports in Queens, and uses guns, pyrotechnics and hawks to drive away birds.

Among the other tactics: Bird eggs are coated in oil to prevent them from hatching. Nests are removed. The agency also plays recordings of bird distress calls, and landscapers remove any shrubs and trees that might be attractive to certain species.

The Air Transport Association, an airline association, has had a "bird strike" task force for years examining things that can be done to reduce the danger of a hit.

Among other things, the task force has arranged for any feathers collected from damaged aircraft to be sent to a lab at the Smithsonian where they can be analyzed to determine the species involved. Knowing the type of bird can help authorities decide how to control flocks in busy airspace.

The Port Authority could not immediately provide statistics on bird strikes at New York City airports, but pilots appear to report close calls routinely.

Sometimes aircraft have to take evasive action to avoid a flock of geese. Other times, it's too late and they can only hope for the best.

One Boeing 737 pilot writing about a strike in a safety report described the smell of burnt feathers and seabird after a gull was sucked into his rear engine during a landing at LaGuardia in 2004.

If an engine takes in a large bird — or several birds at once — fan blades may break, causing an imbalance in the engine's rotation and severe vibrations, said Kevin Poormon, who tests the ability of aircraft engines to withstand bird strikes. Those vibrations conceivably could be strong enough to cause the engine to come loose from its mounting, Poormon said.

Passengers heaped more praise on Sullenberger, co-pilot Jeff Skiles and their crew for how they handled the landing and evacuation.

Mark P. Hood, of Charlotte, N.C., said he felt a jolt ripple through the jet as though a baseball bat hit the engine close to the George Washington Bridge.

"I think everyone was holding their breath, making their peace, saying their prayers," Hood said.

His wife, in an interview outside their California home, called him "a pilot's pilot" and said talk of him being a national hero was "a little weird."

At a City Hall ceremony Friday to honor those who came to the aid of the stranded passengers, Mayor Michael Bloomberg said Sullenberger's actions "inspired people around the city, and millions more around the world."

Higgins said that investigators will look at his actions in preventing widespread death during the episode.

"It is a very rare event," she said. "Pilots train for this routinely, through the use of simulators. So it's something that they plan for, but not something that is executed with any regularity at all."

Part of the NTSB's job, she said, will be to look at "everything that made yesterday's accident so survivable."

Another possibly helpful factor during a crash is the presence of fuel on board. Jet fuel is lighter than water, and can help make an aircraft more buoyant — as long as it doesn't explode on impact. The air in the cabin also helps the plane float.

The NTSB is working with the FBI and the city to retrieve any video evidence recorded by city citizens. The Coast Guard is trying to ensure that fuel still in the aircraft is contained, if possible, and doesn't spill into the river.

Police and emergency crews also pulled about 15 pieces of carry-on luggage, the door of the plane, sheared pieces of metal and flotation devices from the water.

The plane, bound for Charlotte, N.C., took off from LaGuardia Airport at 3:26 p.m. Thursday. Less than a minute later, the pilot reported a "double bird strike" and said he needed to return to LaGuardia, said Doug Church, a spokesman for the National Air Traffic Controllers Association.

If the accident was hard to imagine, so was the result: Besides one victim with two broken legs, there were no other reports of serious injuries.

Passengers quickly realized something was terrifyingly wrong.

"I heard an explosion, and I saw flames coming from the left wing, and I thought, `This isn't good,'" said Dave Sanderson, 47, who was heading home to Charlotte from a business trip.

NEW YORK – A cool-headed pilot maneuvered his crippled jetliner over New York City and ditched it in the frigid Hudson River on Thursday, and all 155 on board were pulled to safety as the plane slowly sank. It was, the governor said, "a miracle on the Hudson."

One victim suffered two broken legs, a paramedic said, but there were no other reports of serious injuries.

US Airways Flight 1549, an Airbus A320 bound for Charlotte, N.C., struck a flock of birds just after takeoff minutes earlier at LaGuardia Airport, apparently disabling the engines.

The pilot, identified as Chesley B. "Sully" Sullenberger III of Danville, Calif., "was phenomenal," passenger Joe Hart said. "He landed it — I tell you what, the impact wasn't a whole lot more than a rear-end (collision). It threw you into the seat ahead of you.

"Both engines cut out and he actually floated it into the river," he said.

In a city still wounded from the aerial attack on the World Trade Center, authorities were quick to assure the public that terrorism wasn't involved.

The plane was submerged up to its windows in the river by the time rescuers arrived, including Coast Guard vessels and commuter ferries that happened to be nearby. Some passengers waded in water up to their knees, standing on the wing of the plane and waiting for help.

Helen Rodriguez, a paramedic who was among the first to arrive at the scene, said she saw one woman with two broken legs. Fire officials said others were evaluated for hypothermia, bruises and other minor injuries. An infant was on board and appeared to be fine, Mayor Michael Bloomberg said.

"We had a miracle on 34th Street. I believe now we have had a miracle on the Hudson," Gov. David Paterson said.

The crash took place on a 20-degree day, one of the coldest of the season in New York. The Coast Guard said the water temperature was 36 degrees.

Dave Sanderson, who was flying home to Charlotte after a business trip, said the sound of an explosion was followed by passengers running up the aisle and people being shoved out of the way.

As the plane descended, passenger Vallie Collins tapped out a text message to her husband, Steve: "My plane is crashing." He was desperately trying to figure out whether she had been on the downed plane when the message arrived.

Another passenger, Jeff Kolodjay, said people put their heads in their laps and prayed. He said the captain instructed them to "brace for impact because we're going down."

"It was intense. It was intense. You've got to give it to the pilot. He made a hell of a landing," Kolodjay said.

Witnesses said the pilot appeared to guide the plane down. Barbara Sambriski, a researcher at The Associated Press, watched the water landing from the news organization's high-rise office. "I just thought, 'Why is it so low?' And, splash, it hit the water," she said.

As water slowly filled the cabin, Sanderson said he and another passenger helped people out onto the wing. One woman had a 3-year-old child, he said, and safely tossed the toddler onto a raft before climbing on herself.

One commuter ferry, the Thomas Jefferson of the company NY Waterway, arrived within minutes of the crash, and some of its own riders grabbed life vests and lines of rope and tossed them to plane passengers in the water.

"They were cheering when we pulled up," ferry captain Vincent Lombardi. "We had to pull an elderly woman out of a raft in a sling. She was crying. ... People were panicking. They said, 'Hurry up, hurry up.'"

Paramedics treated at least 78 patients, fire officials said. Coast Guard boats rescued 35 people who were immersed in the frigid water and ferried them to shore. Some of the rescued were shivering and wrapped in white blankets, their feet and legs soaked.

Two police scuba divers said they pulled another woman from a lifeboat "frightened out of her mind" and lethargic from hypothermia. Another woman fell off a rescue raft, and the divers said they swam over and put her on a Coast Guard boat.

The plane took off at 3:26 p.m. for a flight that would last only five minutes. It was less than a minute after takeoff when the pilot reported a "double bird strike" and said he needed to return to LaGuardia, said Doug Church, a spokesman for the National Air Traffic Controllers Association. He said the pilot apparently meant that birds had hit both of the plane's jet engines.

The controller told the pilot to divert to an airport in nearby Teterboro, N.J., but it was not clear why the pilot did not land there.

Church said there was no mayday call from the plane's transponder. The plane splashed into the water off roughly 48th Street in midtown Manhattan — one of the busiest and most closely watched stretches of the river.

US Airways CEO Doug Parker said 150 passengers, three flight attendants and two pilots were on board the jetliner.

An official speaking on condition of anonymity because the investigation was still ongoing identified the pilot as Sullenberger. A woman answered and hung up when the AP asked to speak with Sullenberger's family in Danville.

Sullenberger, 57, described himself in an online professional profile as a 29-year employee of US Airways. He started his own consulting business, Safety Reliability Methods Inc., two years ago.

Bank of America and Wells Fargo said they had employees on the plane. Charlotte is a major banking center.

Eric Doten, a Florida aviation safety consultant, said he could not recall another example of a modern jetliner water crash in which everyone survived. He said many things had to go right to avert catastrophe: The plane didn't cartwheel when it hit, the fuselage remained intact, and the fuel did not ignite — in fact its buoyancy probably helped the plane stay afloat.

The plane sank slowly as it drifted downriver. Gradually, the fuselage went under until about half of the tail fin and rudder was above water. A Fire Department boat tugged the plane to the southern tip of Manhattan and docked it there.

The Federal Aviation Administration says there were about 65,000 bird strikes to civil aircraft in the United States from 1990 to 2005, or about one for every 10,000 flights.

"They literally just choke out the engine and it quits," said Joe Mazzone, a retired Delta Air Lines pilot. He said air traffic control towers routinely alert pilots if there are birds in the area.

The Hudson crash took place almost exactly 27 years after an Air Florida plane bound for Tampa crashed into the Potomac River just after takeoff from Washington National Airport, killing 78 people. Five people on that flight survived.

On Dec. 20, a Continental Airlines plane veered off a runway and slid into a snowy field at the Denver airport, injuring 38 people. That was the first major crash of a commercial airliner in the United States since Aug. 27, 2006, when 49 people were killed after a Comair jetliner took off from a Lexington, Ky., runway that was too short.