All 155 passengers and crew members are safe and a pilot is being hailed as a hero after a US Airways flight ditched in the Hudson River after striking a flock of birds Thursday afternoon.

US Airways flight 1549, a twin-engine jet bound for Charlotte, N.C., lost power about three minutes after taking off from LaGuardia Airport around 3:26 p.m.

The pilot made an emergency water landing in the icy river, setting the jet down near the Intrepid Museum at 46th Street. The plane remained afloat as those inside scrambled onto the wings, and within minutes rescue boats drew aside the fuselage and began offloading passengers.

See photos of the incident taken by NY1 viewers.

According to US Airways, there were 150 passengers, three flight attendants, and two pilots aboard US Airways Flight 1549. Airline officials say preliminary reports show everyone has been accounted for.

Government officials say the impact of a flock of birds damaged both engines, prompting the pilot to attempt the daring water-landing maneuver.

Passengers say the pilot announced, "Brace yourself," before setting the jet down in the 41-degree water.

Witnesses saw the plane land on the Hudson River around 47th Street, then bob in the water as it gradually drifted downstream toward Lower Manhattan.

“That was the most perfect emergency landing I ever saw in my life,” said sanitation worker Danita Johnson, who watched the landing from a nearby pier. "That was the smoothest landing I ever saw."

"I kept saying, 'Relax, relax, women and children first,'" said passenger Jeff Kolodjay. "Then the plane was filling with water. It seemed like two or three minutes.”

According to Mayor Michael Bloomberg, the last person off of the plane was the pilot, who walked up and down the length of the plane twice to check for remaining passengers before leaving the plane. Bloomberg praised the exceptionally well-coordinated rescue operation, which included a timely response from several New York Waterway ferries.

"It looks like a miraculous rescue," said Bill White of the Intrepid Museum, located near the scene of the accident.

A Circle Line employee saw about 50 people in the water and on the roof of the plane. Circle Line and New York Waterways took some of the stranded passengers out of the water to a port terminal in New Jersey.

Other victims were transported from the shore to St. Vincent's Hospital, Roosevelt Hospital, and Weehawken Hospital. Hospital officials say many patients are being treated for exposure to the water.

Among the passengers was an infant, who is now being tended to in New Jersey.

In a press conference, Governor David Paterson referred to the daring landing and subsequent rescue effort as "a miracle on the Hudson."

The mayor said that after the evacuation, the plane was tied up at a pier in Battery Park.

NY1 Bronx reporter Dean Meminger was in the Fordham section of the Bronx when he heard a loud boom and looked up to fire shooting out of the engine of a plane. He then took exclusive footage of the troubled aircraft in flight, seen here.

The Red Cross has sent hundreds of blankets to the locations where passengers were sent.

According to accounts of previous aircraft water landings, the rescue of all 155 on board makes Thursday's incident the most successful water landing in the history of commercial aviation. Aviation experts say there are only about a dozen instances in which pilots have ever attempted a controlled water landing of a commercial passenger airliner, called a "ditching" in the industry.

Of those dozen known ditchings, most involved planes carrying 60 or fewer passengers.

The largest plane ever to attempt a water landing was an Ethiopian 767 jetliner, which had 175 aboard when it ditched in the Indian Ocean after running out of fuel on November 23, 1996. Fifty-two survived and were able to make it safely to nearby Grand Comoro island.

On November 22, 1968, the pilot of a Japan Airlines DC-10 with 107 aboard misjudged the runway at San Francisco International Airport and landed in the waters of San Francisco Bay. All aboard made it ashore safely and the aircraft was subsequently repaired and placed back in service. This appears to be the most successful water landing prior to Thursday.