With the television tuned to a news channel Thursday afternoon, I watched an aircraft sink slowly into New York’s Hudson River. “Right in the center of the Hudson River is a miracle,” a commentator said as I began this column.

The statement perfectly distilled the incredible event unfolding in the bitter cold on the river between New York and New Jersey, as an intact US Airways A320 was surrounded by ferries, fireboats and rescue workers in other boats.

The jet had taken off from New York’s LaGuardia airport at 3:26 p.m. Reports indicated that it may have flown through a flock of geese, blowing at least one engine and forcing the pilot into “an emergency water landing” just six minutes later.

There was no wreckage, and there was no fire. The voices of the news anchors, the commentators and those they interviewed all were calm — if a bit incredulous at the fact that such an event could end with all 150 passengers and five crew members alive and rescued without incident.

A miracle, indeed.

Jet airliners, of course, are not designed to land on rivers. In fact, the term “water landing” is an oxymoron in more than one way. Jet airplanes normally impact water with devastating results.

Were it not for the miraculous nature of the incident, I and other television viewers surely would have seen disturbing video of rescue workers pulling bodies from the frigid water as the city’s skyline loomed behind.

The last time we saw similar videos from New York, smoke and fire billowed thickly into the Manhattan sky, and two landmarks that had defined the skyline stood no longer. More than 3,000 Americans would lose their lives during just a small portion of one terrible day.

It was hard for me to watch Thursday’s video without recalling the horror of 9/11. First, there was the incomprehension of those minutes after the first tower had been hit, followed by the sickening realization that we were under attack when the second plane flashed across the television screen and smashed into the second tower. The collapse of one — and then the second — tower brought the nauseating awareness that the death toll would reach into the thousands.

Miraculously — there’s that word again — Thursday’s news video elicited only memories of those terrible emotions. What could have been a disaster was only a mishap.

Some commentators credited the pilot; others credited the “hardness” of cold water. And a few thanked God. Probably, they were all correct to one degree or another.