A U.S. airways jumbo jet was slowly lifted out of the icy Hudson River late on Saturday, three days after the A320 had made a successful "splash landing" that saved all 155 people on board.

Television footage from the scene, near Battery Park City in Lower Manhattan, showed the right side of the Airbus with the intact engine but its covering was mangled.

Passengers are rescued after a U.S. Airways plane crashed into the Hudson River in New York January 15, 2009. A US Airways jet with more than 150 people on board came down into the frigid Hudson River off Manhattan after apparently hitting a flock of geese on Thursday and officials said everyone was rescued. [Xinhua/Reuters]

Work to recover the waterlogged jet was making "very good progress", Kitty Higgins of the National Transportation Safety Board told a press conference.

The recovery effort was hampered by slush surrounding the aircraft and huge chunks of ice on a day with air temperature hovered around minus eight degrees Celsius.

A crane lifts the wreckage of the US Airways airplane, that crashed in the Hudson River, out of the river in New York January 17, 2009.[Xinhua/AFP]

The aircraft was placed on a barge and will be taken to an undisclosed location in New Jersey for examination. The flight data and cockpit voice recorders, known as black boxes, remained on the plane.

The flight bound for Charlotte, North Carolina, met "big, dark-brown birds" shortly after takeoff from LaGuardia Airport on Thursday and both engines lost power.

The flight crew decided to land on the Hudson, rather than back to LaGuardia or to the nearby smaller Teterboro Airport because the plane was flying "too low, too slow" and would have "catastrophic" consequences if things went wrong in a heavily populated area, said Kitty Higgins of the National Transportation Safety Board.

The plane landed near a vessel so as to improve recovery after landing, but the pilots were not able to turn on the "ditching switch" to automatically seal off the aircraft in water, Higgins told a press conference on Saturday evening.

The successful emergency landing and the ensuing rescue of all the 150 passengers, three flight attendants and two pilots, were described as a "miracle on the Hudson" by New York State Governor David Paterson.

Captain Chelsey "Sully" Sullenberger has been hailed as a hero and received phone congratulations from U.S. President George W. Bush and President-elect Barack Obama.

Emergency crew workers work to place the wreckage of the US Airways airplane that crashed in the Hudson River on a barge as it is hoisted out of the river in New York January 17, 2009.[Xinhua/Reuters]

(Xinhua News Agency January 19, 2009)