The Miracle of US Airways Flight 1549

When US Airways Flight 1549 crashed into the Hudson River off New York City on January 13, 2009, I thought it was just another aircraft disaster but this time the survivors were blessed because no one on-board died. I did not take much notice of the incident.

And then a friend posted a note on her account with Facebook and shared about the amazement of the number of people on board the aircraft and its significance and that was when I decided to look at that incident again and discovered something very interesting.

On that flight there were a total of 150 passengers and 5 crew members thus giving a total of 155 people. With 5 crew members, it can only mean that there were three flight attendants and two persons in the cockpit - the pilot and his co-pilot.

Now this is the interesting part. With two persons in the cockpit, there are now 153 in the body of the plane and that number rang a bell. After Jesus had risen from the dead, one early morning Jesus appeared on the beach and He enquired of His disciples whether they managed to catch any fish and their response to Him was that they had caught none. Jesus then proceeded to ask them to cast their net on the right side of the boat and they hauled in a large catch.

In John 21:11 we read, "Simon Peter went up and dragged the net to land, full of large fish, one hundred and fifty-three, and although there were so many, the net was not broken."

The aircraft landed on the river and up to today, other than the left engine falling off, it remained intact just like the net which the Apostle Peter used to haul in the fish - there was not a tear in the net.

The pilot, Chesley "Sully" Sullenberger, is probably a Jew (going by his last name) and for a long time, the name of the co-pilot is not widely known. Now, is that not very uncanny? Jesus was a Jew and His partner, the Holy Spirit, never likes to draw attention to Himself and prefers to give all attention to Jesus. So I was not surprised to find that his name was hardly mentioned. And so to me the two persons in the cockpit spoke volumes to me about Jesus and the Holy Spirit that they were in charge.

Also Capt Sully made an extra effort to walk the aisle of the plane, not once but twice, to ensure that everyone had evacuated the plane before he left to be with his crew. Jesus is always there to ensure that we are safe.

And then the point about the number 153. Do you know that the arithmetic progression of the numbers 1 till 17 is 153? and in the Hebrew, the number 17 represents victory? And this (which I just found out last evening) really floored me. If you take the sum total of all the Hebrew alphabet for this statement, "I am God" it all adds up to 153.

So is the Lord telling us something? Certainly I believe so. The 'crash' taking place at a time so close to the inauguration ceremony of President Barrack Obama leads me to believe that God the Father is telling us that we need Him and with Him at the helm, everything will turn out right. We just have to train our eyes on Him.