Miracle on the Hudson Survivor and Singer/Songwriter Emma Sophina   

You had no idea who she was when you saw her on TV, soaking wet, getting out of U.S. Airways Flight #1549, floating on the Hudson River in the dead of winter, one of 155 survivors of that perfect emergency crash landing by Captain “Sully” Sullenburger and his crew. Since then, you have seen her on the CBS Early Show, on Larry King, in People magazine and on Q104.3 radio among many other places. She is, as it turns out, a beautiful Australian singer/songwriter named Emma Sophina (pronounced so – fine – uh) and has recently scored a record deal with Decca Records from a song inspired by that very event. It’s virtually impossible to imagine being in a plane crash, much less surviving one. It’s just one of those things that, until you have experienced it, you really have no idea. I certainly don’t. Now, imagine you are on a wonderful two-month vacation. And you are going from one city to the next, as most people do on vacations, and you are taking short little plane trips to various cities. Emma describes in her own words what she experienced onboard that plane on that fateful day back in January. 

Emma Sophina – It all happened very quickly, really. The flight took off and I’m thinking about pulling my laptop out and doing some music work, as was everyone else on the plane. You know, the normal things passengers do on a flight. So, when the birds hit the plane, it was definitely one of those moments where you say to yourself, ‘Ok, I think I’m going to go to heaven now.’ I mean, it wasn’t the most intense turbulence I ever felt, but it was a jolt for sure.

So that jolt, combined with the smell of the smoke and the sound of the engines dying is what made me think this is not a good thing. That’s when the plane started going down, but we weren’t plummeting down – it was veering towards the left and going down. And being Australian, I lost all orientation as to where I was, you know, like a ‘What part of Manhattan are we flying over now’ sort of thing. What I thought then was that we were going to be landing because of this problem that the plane was obviously having. With that said though, none of us were concerned with what was going on outside the plane. Several people were praying. I was asking questions. You know, ‘Does anyone know what’s going on?’ I heard a sound that sounded like landing gear coming down. In the meantime, as I said, five minutes goes by very quickly, so during all of this activity, nothing was being said over the intercom until we heard the captain say, ‘Brace for impact.’ Then, you say to yourself, what does ‘Brace for impact’ mean exactly? And also [think] that clearly our lives were in the control of someone else.

And then, within 15 seconds of that announcement, we were in the water. When we did hit the water, I thought we had hit a building. It was that loud and hard. And it wasn’t until the doors of the plane opened [that] someone yelled out,  ‘We’re in the water!’ Not even regular turbulence can prepare you for the feeling of knowing that the plane you are in is going down. Combine that with me not being a really big fan of heights in the first place, so, not a great combination, and quite surreal. 

JC – Is all of your luggage now at the bottom of the Hudson?

ES – I have absolutely nothing. The clothes that you saw me wearing in newspaper photos and news reports were the only ones that I had left. Today I have on clothes that people have given me. And I have to say the generosity of people has been nothing short of magnificent. But I did lose everything. All my identification cards, everything, including my Australian passport was gone and had to be replaced.

JC – I know you had a bunch of CDs of your own music in your luggage, but did you lose any master recordings?

ES – Luckily, no, those are back in Australia.

JC – Have you had a chance to speak with Captain Sullenburger or any other crewmembers yet?

ES – Not yet, but I really want to, of course, and really hope that I can at some point. I’ll just say that if you were to put the right pilot on the right plane, it was definitely orchestrated by something higher than any of us.

JC – So this whole experience has inspired a song?

ES – Yes, a friend of mine from Melbourne, who is a singer/songwriter, put me onto Mark Swersky, a producer here in New York, and this was before the crash. He was the only person I knew in New York and was actually the last person I spoke to that morning. So right after the crash, literally 45 minutes after I got out of the river, I called him and told him I don’t know what’s going to happen now, but I may need your help. So he has been a very big help.

When I eventually did finally make it to Charlotte, Marc and my friend from Melbourne had an idea for a song and as soon as I heard it, I really loved the feel of the song, but changed the lyrics to reflect what had just happened to me. So yes, a song came out of this and it’s called “Send Another Prayer.” And it’s really a thank you to the pilots and crew as well as a thank you to God. 

JC – Have you gone to church much since this happened?

ES – No, but I plan on going more frequently.

Jonathan Clarke is a DJ on New York's Classic Rock Station, Q104.3 WAXQ, You can listen to Jon's Out of the Box show Sunday night's at 9pm.