NEW YORK - Federal investigators on Sunday recovered the black box flight recorders from a US Airways Airbus, after working all night to pull the wrecked plane from New York's Hudson River.
Footage on local NY1 television showed officials carrying away the boxes, which contain cockpit voice and data recordings in the minutes before Thursday's forced-landing in the Hudson.
The National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) said the recorders will be taken to a laboratory in Washington, DC, for analysis. It was not immediately clear when results would be released.
The recorders will provide crucial evidence in determining why the plane suddenly lost power in both engines shortly after take-off from LaGuardia Airport.
The pilot reported hitting a flock of large birds, some of which are believed to have been sucked into the engines, knocking out all power.
Salvage teams pulled the Airbus mostly intact from the river following a marathon operation hampered by ice in the river, snow, and swift currents that limited the time divers could spend in the water.
NY1 footage showed the fuselage in one piece, although some areas of the underbody, wings and engine areas were shredded from the impact of the splash landing.
The pilot, Chesley Sullenberger, has been credited with saving the lives of all 155 people aboard with his skillful handling of the plane as it came down.
Everyone aboard was able to get off the sinking aircraft and into rescue boats.
Search crews announced Saturday that they might also have found the Airbus' left engine, which was lost in the Hudson during the crash.
Following investigators' debriefing of the crew, the first clear details emerged Saturday of the terrifying minutes between collision with the birds and the Hudson crash landing.
The cockpit windscreen "was literally filled with big, dark brown birds," Sullenberger told investigators, according to Kitty Higgins, from the National Transport Safety Board (NTSB). "He said his instinct was to duck, but he didn't."
Simultaneously, the pilot and co-pilot "heard booms, felt the impact, the power went down and they smelled -- this is the captain saying -- they smelled 'burning birds.'"
With both engines out, the captain decided that the only place he could land without endangering people on the ground was the Hudson.
The captain said he decided against returning to LaGuardia because he was "too low, too slow, they were pointed the wrong way and they had to traverse a populated area," Higgins told the news conference.
An alternative airport was also ruled because as "it was a populated area, the consequences would have been catastrophic."
Sullenberger took over control of the plane from his co-pilot, who had been flying, and "lowered the nose to try and counteract the loss of airspeed," Higgins said.
"While the captain was flying the aircraft, the first officer was trying desperately to restart the engines," Higgins said.
After a perfect water landing, all 150 passengers and five crew were able to walk out of the sinking aircraft and enter rescue boats.
Sullenberger told investigators that in line with standard procedures, he had brought down the plane close to a boat he saw on the river so that help would be near, Higgins said.
Security camera film footage released Saturday showed for the first time the moment of impact. Water shoots up as the plane makes a perfectly straight landing -- a brilliant piece of handling that experts say prevented a tragic break-up of the plane.
Crew members didn't even realize where they were at first, the NTSB said.
"Neither one of them realized they were in the water," Higgins said. "The captain issued a one word demand: 'evacuate'."