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The FAA has released the audio tapes and transcripts of the radio communications between Flight 1549, the US Airways jet that crash-landed in the Hudson River on Jan. 15, and the various air traffic controllers in the area on the afternoon of the accident. The tapes are dramatic, providing a moment by moment account of the flights communications from the time it suffered a double bird strike to the time it glided down without engine power onto the chilly surface of the Hudson River just off Manhattans West Side. At 3:27:32 pm, a scant 2 minutes and 32 seconds after the flight was cleared for takeoff by the tower at LaGuardia, Captain Chesley B. Sullenberger III alerted air traffic control of trouble. In a deep, calm voice, Captain Sullenberger said, Ah, this is, uh, Cactus 1539. Hit birds. We lost thrust in both engines. Were turning back towards La Guardia. His cadence is brisk, in the clipped syntax that is normal for communications between cockpits and controllers. If there was a sign of stress, it was that the captain had fumbled his call sign; Cactus is the correct sign for US Airways, but he was Flight 1549, not 1539 or 1529, as the flight was occasionally called, incorrectly, at various points in the tape. The controller replied instantly, OK, yeah, you need to return to La Guardia, turn left, heading of, uh, 220, that is, further to the left. Captain Sullenberger acknowledged, and the controller, in a windowless radar room at the New York Terminal Radar Approach …