iReporter Julie Pukelis put a camera in front of a telescope to get this view of the scene in the river.
Everyone on board was accounted for and alive, officials said. About 15 people were being treated at hospitals and others were being evaluated at triage centers.
Flight 1549, headed to Charlotte, North Carolina, was airborne less than three minutes, according to FAA spokeswoman Laura Brown.
The pilot radioed to air traffic controllers that he had experienced a bird strike and declared an emergency, a New Jersey State Police source said.
Sources identified the pilot as Chelsey B. "Sully" Sullenberger.
"I think a lot of people started praying and just collecting themselves," said passenger Fred Berretta. "It was quite stunning."
He said he was expecting the plane to flip over and break apart, but it did not.
"It was a great landing," Berretta said.
Air traffic controllers at LaGuardia saw the plane clear the George Washington Bridge by less than 900 feet before gliding into the water about 3:31 p.m., an aviation source told CNN.
Witness Ben Vonklemperer said he watched the plane from the 25th floor of an office building.
"If someone's going to land a plane in the water, this seemed the best possible way to do it," Vonklemperer said. "The way they hit it was very gradual. A very slow contact with the water."
Passenger Jeff Kolodjay said he was sitting in seat 22A, near one of the engines.
"The plane started filling with water pretty quick," he said. "It was scary. There was a lady with her baby on my left-hand shoulder, and she was crawling over the seats."
A picture taken just after the crash showed passengers lined up on slightly submerged safety chutes as they awaited rescue. Police, fire and Coast Guard boats, along with commercial ferries, were quickly on the scene, officials said.
US Airways CEO Doug Parker said 150 passengers and five crew members -- two pilots and three flight attendants -- were on board.
The Coast Guard took aboard 35 people, according to Coast Guard Cmdr. Ron LeBrec.
"I had a long conversation with the pilot," said New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg. "He walked the plane twice after everybody else was off, and tried to verify that there was nobody else on board, and assures us there were not."
"It would appear that the pilot did a masterful job of landing the plane in the river and then making sure that everybody got out," Bloomberg said.
The mayor said he did not believe there were any serious injures. Dr. Gabriel Wilson, associated medical director of the emergency room at Roosevelt Hospital, said 55 survivors were checked out and cleared to leave from the scene.
The temperature in New York was 20 degrees about the time of the crash off Manhattan's west side.
Parker said it would be premature to speculate about the cause of the accident, and that the National Transportation Safety Board would investigate "with our complete support." (CNN)
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