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Twitter Breaks News of Plane Crash in the Hudson

by Terrence O'Brien on January 15, 2009 at 05:23 PM


Twitter is quickly becoming the source for breaking news. We've seen it before with earthquakes, plane crashes, voting irregularities, fires, and even the discovery of ice on mars. So it should come as no surprise that today's news of US Airways flight 1549 that crashed into the Hudson River broke on Twitter first.

Details are still pouring in, but Twitter users continued to beat the mainstream media to the punch, reporting when the rescue effort began a full 15 minutes before CNN was able to get an update out via its own Twitter feed, and getting photos up of the plane floating in the river long before the first TV crews arrived at the scene.

The plane, carrying 148 passengers, made a reasonably controlled landing on top of the water after a pair of geese flew into each of the planes engines. Everyone escaped alive, and with only minor injuries.


In a slightly humorous twist, you can track the flight on USAirways.com where it is listed as delayed, but thanks to the on-board GPS, you can see the flight sitting in the middle of the Hudson River on a map, not moving.

Blogs have been heralded with pushing citizen journalism to the forefront of news reporting, but it's Twitter that has democratized the dissemination of truly up-to-the-minute information. [From: Twitter and Silicon Alley Insider]

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Tags: breaking news, BreakingNews, citizen journalism, CitizenJournalism, crash, news, top, twitter, us airways flight 1549, UsAirwaysFlight1549

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