HARRISON, N.J. – The trays of food that never got served have been removed, along with some of the seat cushions and the mold from dried river mud. Aside from that, the damaged Airbus A320 jet is largely frozen in time from the day it splashed down safely on the Hudson River in 2009 and gave a country reeling from economic calamity something to cheer about.

The US Airways jet has spent the last two years in a hangar just outside Newark at J. Supor and Sons, a company that specializes in large-scale salvage and moving projects. On Friday, crews continued preparations for the plane’s final journey, to an aviation museum in Charlotte, N.C., where it will be on permanent display.

The wings of the plane, which are detached, will be moved first, followed by the fuselage in the next two weeks, Carolinas Aviation Museum President Shawn Dorsch said. He said it will take about five days to drive the 120-foot fuselage from New Jersey to North Carolina on a large flatbed truck.

The museum, in the city where US Airways Flight 1549 was bound Jan. 15, 2009, reached an agreement earlier this year to acquire the plane.

“We’re really over the moon about this,” Dorsch said Friday as he watched workmen climbing in and out of the back of the plane cabin via a ladder. “We’re not the Smithsonian, so to be able to get something like this is like getting the space shuttle.”

Flight 1549 had just taken off from New York’s LaGuardia Airport when a flock of birds struck both engines, shutting them down.

The pilot, Capt. Chesley “Sully” Sullenberger, quickly realized he wouldn’t be able to make it to a New Jersey airport, at one point telling the control tower, “We’re gonna be in the Hudson.”

 


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