NEW YORK (Reuters) - Pilot Chesley "Sully" Sullenberger knew his US Airways jetliner was in trouble the moment it hit birds, and with both engines damaged, made a quick decision to attempt a dangerous landing in New York City's Hudson River.

"I needed the wings exactly level at touchdown. I needed to make the rate of descent survivable. I needed to touch down at a nose-up attitude. And I needed to touch down just above our minimum flying speed. And all those needed to occur simultaneously," Sullenberger told reporters on Monday.

The US press talked at length of "miracle", as if only divine intervention could explain the safe ditching of Flight 1549 on the Hudson river.

This was no miracle: you had a very experimented captain, an Air Force veteran whom you can assume has seen his fair share of sticky situations, and also an experienced glider plane pilot. I can tell you from personal experience: flying glider planes makes you extremely sanguine about landing a plane without engine power.

Capt. Sullenberger did it plenty of times, of course not with a A320, but controls were fully operational and he did a classical L-shaped approach (downwind leg, base step and then final approach) using airbrakes when needed.

And let's not forget the cabin crew: you'd think their jobs is to serve you drinks and bad food, but 95% of their training is to repeat security procedures in case of emergencies, over and over again, until they can do this in their sleep.

So, it was no miracle: a very experienced and well trained crew (and unionized, as Jerome pointed out) who coldly assessed the emergency, took the right decision and executed superbly. In these situations, this can make all the difference between a happy ending and a major disaster. Of course, things could have gone wrong, but in their predicament, passengers of Flight 1549 had the odds definitely stacked in their favor.

Europeans think a hundred miles is a long way. Americans think a hundred years is a long time.