I seem to have a recall of another attempt in Africa involving a hijakced aircraft where the authorities denied landing access, and faced with running out of fuel the pilot attempted to put down just off shore. Suffice to say, the plane flipped over and crashed. I'm sure I'm right in saying that conventional aviation thinking was that you couldn't land a commercial aircraft on water (admittedly the sea would be harder than a river given that one has waves etc) but I was always told not to take any notice of the standard "in the unlikely event of us having land over water" etc as the life jackets, inflatable rafts, and escape drill would be of no use once the airframe has broken up on impact. There really can't have been any margin for error on his glide path. The other thing that occurs to me as that land on the West River from Guardia he must have been losing altitude over mid town which means he must have come perilously close to a few sky scrappers? Mind you, I've got idea what the take off flight plan is, as even though a straight line mental picture would have him dodging skyscrappers, I can't believe that's occurred too?
Mind you I'm struggling to think there can be a busier stretch of water in the US with the number of river taxis running to New Jersey, the tourist craft, as well as the commercial boats from up state, and that undoubtedly helped. Thinking about it, there's a few helipads not too far away either. A bit of credit to Airbus for getting the thing to float for so long too I'd have thought.
Still makes for some slightly surreal images mind you.