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A National Crush on a Crashed Airplane

The miracle continues. The Airbus A320 airplane that crashed into the Hudson River last year has been moved to the Carolinas Aviation Museum in Charlotte, writes "the Times":http://www.nytimes.com/2011/06/11/us/11plane.html?ref=design, for "a...

The miracle continues. The Airbus A320 airplane that crashed into the Hudson River last year has been moved to the Carolinas Aviation Museum in Charlotte, writes the Times, for “a multimillion-dollar exhibit. It will be as much about aviation safety and history as it will be about hope.” The interest in it, says Capt. Chesley Sullenberger, who piloted US Airways Flight 1549 and now a safety expert, is "a reminder of selflessness and cooperative behavior and goodness. It's a reaffirmation of life, ultimately." Now there’s a movie too, apparently.

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Ben Bostic, who had a clear view of an engine that burst into flames after taking in several geese shortly after the plane took off.

He spent Thursday and Friday riding with the fuselage on its final leg to Charlotte, where he works as a technology executive for a bank. The last time he saw the plane, "she" had been in the water, he said. He calls it "she" or "her," terms of affection for an aircraft he initially blamed in the weeks after the crash. "I was like, why did your engine have to go out and catch on fire and scare the crap out of me?" he said. With time, he saw things differently. "She did everything that she could, that she had to do for us to survive, staying afloat and not breaking apart," he said. "I grew really fond of the plane as I started to understand how she was extremely vital in our survival." Mr. Bostic will be at a reception Saturday in a hangar at the Charlotte airport where the plane will be restored and then moved to the museum.

It’s like Stockholm syndrome, but for a thing.