Flight 1549 passengers get baggage back after Hudson splash down

— -- It wasn't until after US Airways Flight 1549 had landed in the Hudson River, and passenger Karin Hill was stepping through an emergency exit onto the wing, that it hit her.

"I thought, 'My coat! My purse!' " she recalls. They were both back at seat 18E, where she was sitting Jan. 15 when the jetliner hit birds, destroying its engines and forcing it to ditch in the Hudson.

Then logic returned. "I can't get them," she thought. "I'm not going back there."

The 150 passengers left their belongings behind for the Hudson to claim as they scrambled onto life rafts and rescue boats and the jet sank beneath 50 feet of dirty water.

Hill, 24, a college student from Boulder, Colo., was flying home with boyfriend Chris Rooney after visiting friends and seeing the sights in New York City. She hurried off the plane wearing blue jeans, a sweater and boots, leaving her purse, backpack and a coat in the cabin and a suitcase in the cargo compartment.

Hill and other passengers never dreamed they would see their possessions again. But this month, Flight 1549 passengers are starting to get special deliveries: FedEx boxes containing dried and cleaned wallets, handbags, coats, cameras, jewelry, clothing, important papers, even toothbrushes — rescued from a watery grave.

In a large, complex effort, US Airways lcc has with the help of a Texas-based company spent four months recovering, sorting, cleaning and restoring 36,000 passenger belongings pulled from the plane.

Inside Hill's FedEx box were her wallet and everything in it, a Swarovski crystal bracelet Rooney gave her for Christmas, a digital camera and souvenirs including a Playbill from the Broadway showWicked.

Seeing her things again "was bittersweet, because it brought back memories," she says. Although the camera broke, "I never thought I'd get those pictures back, and they were fine."

She was stunned to see clear images of the Empire State Building, Ellis Island, Central Park and Tiffany, where she tried on engagement rings.

And there was a shot of her and Rooney smiling at the gate, waiting to board Flight 1549.

Everything was soaked

Days after the accident, US Airways sent every passenger a ticket refund and a $5,000 check for immediate expenses. Although much of the multimillion-dollar recovery job will be covered by US Airways' insurance, US Airways was not legally required to do it.

When a fatal airline crash occurs, the Aviation Disaster Family Assistance Act requires airlines to return passenger possessions to passengers' families. Because no one died aboard Flight 1549, the law didn't apply.

"We did this because we care for our customers and care that things be done right for them," says Deborah Thompson, US Airways' director of emergency response, who coordinated the effort.

After the accident, US Airways called Global-BMS, a Fort Worth-based company that specializes in disaster recoveries. When the jet was hauled out of the Hudson and placed on a barge for inspection by accident investigators, Global official Mark Rocco was there, walking the cabin to tag and remove personal items to return them.

"There is a strange bond people have to their stuff, an emotional bond to the incident that's part of their journey forward," says Rocco, Global's senior vice president for transportation disaster services.

Even after days in the Hudson, the cabin's interior was eerily intact.

"It looked like it had been in a dirty carwash," recalls Rocco. "A lot of the overhead bins were still closed, and a lot of things were still stored under the seats. I saw a wallet on the floor and wondered why it hadn't floated out of the plane."

Everything was soaked and smelled of jet fuel. But every item the Global workers found was tagged with a unique tracking number, bagged and placed on a refrigerated truck bound for a Texas warehouse.

"Freezing puts things into suspended animation," Rocco says.

Back in Texas, Global began defrosting, cleaning and restoring everything it could — including everything inside carry-ons and suitcases — and figuring out who owned what. Most electronics didn't work after being submerged, although at least one laptop hard drive survived, US Airways says. Hill's digital photos did, too.

Among Global's techniques: heating fuel-soaked items to 90 degrees to evaporate the jet fuel, using a biocide to kill mold and bacteria, and old-fashioned dry-cleaning.

Identifying suitcases with name tags, as well as purses and wallets with driver's licenses, was easy. But more than 1,000 items have not been matched to owners, including many coats. Rocco says Global will post photos of the unidentified items on a secure website in hopes passengers can identify and claim them.

'I got it back'

Maryann Bruce managed to grab her purse and nothing else that day before bolting out of her seat and out the cabin door into a life raft. On her right hand she usually wore a large diamond ring she'd received on her 25th wedding anniversary two years earlier — but not this time.

Returning from the New York-based investment company that she is president of, Bruce had schlepped through LaGuardia Airport with a new laptop, her briefcase, purse, a mink coat and a carry-on suitcase.

"The ring must've smashed my finger," says Bruce, 49, of Charlotte. "By the time I got to the plane my finger was black and blue."

So she stashed the ring in a jewelry pouch in her carry-on in the overhead compartment. When the plane landed and the flight attendants ordered everyone off, "I knew I had to get off the plane even though the ring was up there."

After being rescued, "I thought I might get my suitcase back," she says. "But I thought someone might steal my jewelry along the way."

A couple of weeks ago, US Airways' Thompson flew to Charlotte to personally deliver Bruce's diamond ring along with her briefcase, fur coat — which had her name sewn inside — and suitcase. The coat and briefcase could not be fully restored, and something red inside Bruce's suitcase bled red dye on everything else when it got wet. Her electric toothbrush still worked.

And the diamond ring looked new.

"Oh my God, I got it back," Bruce says she thought when Thompson handed it over. "It changed hands so many times, and nobody took it."

Another item that came back, a little worse for wear but still legible: Bruce's boarding pass for seat 5D, Flight 1549.

"I plan on framing that," she says.