Miracle on the Hudson

Flight of Faith: My Miracle on the Hudson
Frederick Berretta
TAN Books
2009
200 pages
ISBN 9781935302926

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When the Hudson River received US Airways Flight 1549 on January 15, 2009, it made immediate global news. Since then the movie Sully has been made which focused on the insurance claims.

Fred Berretta was a passenger. His story gives an insight into the life of an ordinary US businessman. His parents were separated but he went to a Catholic school and obviously got a lot of formation. Although living with his Methodist mother he also visited his Catholic father. He drifted away from the faith in university years but drifted back quite quickly.

His tale of the crash is highlighted by his Catholic faith. He caught Mass at St Patricks, New York, in the late morning prior to going to the airport. “After receiving Communion I felt compelled to light a candle in one of the side chapels and said a prayer to St Patrick standing below his crystal reliquary”. He had a few minutes to spare afterwards so he entered a Catholic bookstore across the street and bought a book on the Eucharist.

As the plane was taxiing he was reading the book, happy to have the chance to deepen in some ideas about this great sacrament. He had also missed his time for prayer that morning and was anxious to catch up a little. His New Year’s resolution was to commit himself more fully to his spiritual life and his relationship to God. He was looking to get home as soon as possible so as to see his kids before bed, at least this one week.

It is the story of a busy man living his faith in the middle of the world.

Suddenly everything changes after take off.

As an amateur pilot he knew before the other passengers that something was wrong. The odds of surviving a water landing were slim to none. Most of the passengers would be killed instantly or drowned within seconds

He finds himself faced with almost certain death. He is comforted by the fact that he had been to confession last week and at Mass that morning. As he did his last examination of conscience with the plane descending and with Manhattan buildings now at window level, with one engine on fire and the other not working, he came to the conclusion that he thought he had done everything right in his life from a spiritual point of view. He thought of how he loved his wife and four children. Another child had died soon after birth, his heart still had an ache for that one.

“The silent voice came to my soul “Will you accept my plan for your life?”

His life was full of the ups and downs of family life, his nest egg had gone awry and he had to start again. “I began praying the rosary every day and trying my best to meditate on the gospel scenes with attention, humility and commitment”. “I saw with new clarity that I had been too attached to the material things in my life, too inclined to think that I was in control of my life.”. All this was now flashing in front of him as the river approached.

“Just as every pilot learns in training how to avoid the dreaded death spiral, so every Christian must return, when his spiritual engines are damaged after take off, to a trusting reliance on God’s infinite mercy”. 

While the book gives an exciting account of life inside the plane, the account of life inside this man’s soul is more revealing. This would be good lunchtime reading on a silent retreat. It reinforces in a living way all that the preacher might have said in the meditations. 

His story inspires a deeper trust in God.

He is interviewed live on CNN by Wolf Blitzer and appears the following morning on the live morning show. 

The poignant meeting with his wife and kids back at Charlotte airport is a game changer. He realises even more than before how lucky he is to have his loving family. He is grateful to God for even more than he realised.

“I just hoped I could hold it together when I saw my wife and children. When I did see their smiling faces, I knew that every moment thereafter could never be the same. After a six person hug and multiple kisses we headed home.”

At a reunion of all the passengers a few weeks later many commented on how miraculous the whole thing was. “I had always believed in miracles but never thought one could happen to me.”

“For me there were two miracles on January 15^th, 2009; the first kept the skies clear, the waters calm and the pilot’s hand steady; the second was my interior resolution, moved by grace, to accept the outcome with hope.”