Passengers on board the US Airways jet that crashed into the Hudson River in New York yesterday were lucky to be so close to land.

At the time of the crash the water temperature in the Hudson as near freezing – around 5 degrees Celsius.

 To make matters worse much of northern and eastern America is being hit by fierce arctic temperatures – the wind chill around the crash area was minus 15…and on wet skin that would’ve felt even worse.

If they were further out to sea some may have died from hypothermia.