This detailed portrayal of a true life event by William Langewiesche, was a very cleverly written and interesting tale, titled ‘Anatomy of a Miracle’.  The story was an in-depth look into the Hudson River plane crash, that happened in January of 2009. The details of the incident are well know; the Airbus A320 departed LaGuardia airport and moments later the plane was in trouble and needed an emergency landing. The plane had collided with a flock of geese, which caused the plane to malfunction, both engines failing, one catching fire. Chesley Sullenberger, the pilot with 29 years experience landed the plane in the Hudson River, all passengers surviving – including a baby, five crew and two pilots.

Although this amazing story was depicted countless times in the media, in simple and factual articles, Langewiesche’s story goes above and beyond this, by providing the reader with more information and detail then they could even think they would want to know. This, perhaps, is not necessarily a positive aspect, as when reading i often thought to myself  – ‘is this REALLY neccessary to include?’ – In retrospect, i think that the intricate and over-exposing nature of the narrative provides the reader with an entry into the events of the day and an entry into understanding completely the feelings, thoughts, actions and consequences that occured on that day.

Initially i found the feature to drag on a little, the ins and outs of the geese situation in New York discussed way to intently. When it finally got into the events of the day and the motivations behind Sullenberger’s reasons to do what he did, the story was extremely interesting and gripping. I found that i couldn’t put it down and wanted to read until i found 0ut exactly what happened. It is a great story of human strength and determination, it is one of the few stories that actually has the happy ending, so it was a great subject for Langewiesche to write about. The reader is provided with a great deal of background knowledge of the incident, past events and details of the workings of airplanes. I found this all very interesting, given that i previously had no idea about anything to do with this industry.

In terms of the techniques used by Langewiesche to create a literary masterpiece, his piece was extremely well-written and well structured. He used a good mix of informative writing, personal reflection and quoted speech.  The piece was split in sections, each referring to a separate aspect of the incident. This helped to break up a rather heavy subject topic and make the depth of information easier to understand.

During the piece, i empathised with the pilot, put myself in the position of the passengers, was grossed out by the descriptions of the geese and did the whole ‘will they, won’t they’ thing until it finally resulted in a happy ending, much to my relief. The story really drew me into the narrative, not only as an entertaining and dramatic piece, but also as an informative and educational narration.

I really put this piece up on a pedestal as being a quality literary journalism piece and admire the writing and envy the subject of the piece. I can only hope that i create something even a 10th of great quality as this narration is. I learnt a lot through reading this, in terms of how speech can be utilised, how to draw the reader in, by not giving away everything initially and also how detail can create vivid images in one’s mind, which completely increases the sensory experience of a literary journalism feature.