Earlier this year everyone was glued to their monitors/TVs watching footage of the plunge of flight 1549 into the frigid Hudson River. After the rescue, Stephen Mallon was hired by the crane company, Weeks Marine, to photograph the recovery of USAirway's plane.



After posting the photos on his personal website, Mallon was ordered by several companies consecutively to take them down, then put them up, then take them down. The glaring glitch is that Mallon never signed a ?work for hire? contract, but is being treated as if he did.

Researching this story I found gobs of photos of the salvage process online taken by non-professionals, some even by the Weeks crane crew: Salvage photos of Flight 1549 http://maggiesfarm.anotherdotcom.com/archives/10452-Salvage-photos.html Weeks and Flight 1549 Re-Emerges, http://tugster.wordpress.com/2009/01/18/weeks-and-flight-1549-re-emerges/ and even the plane being hauled through the streets of New York and New Jersey. Flight 1549 on Streets of New York. http://www.blippitt.com/amazing-photos-flight-1549-streets-york

The only difference lil ole me sees is that Mallon was allowed unlimited photographic access inside the plane. All these public photos and videos are of the outside. Was there something inside someone wants to hide? Mallon stated that he could find nothing incriminating in any of his 5,000 shots, but then again, he doesn't know what he's looking for ; nor would any of us..

For your perusal and judgment I'm pointing you towards (links below) the excellent coverage the photographers of the web have given this story about rights abused, or possibly fictional rights abused by big business. These photos are of a very public and very heroic event that is part of all our lives. We deserve to see Mallon's documentation of it all.

If you want to join the fight to FREE THE RECOVERY PHOTOS OF FLIGHT 1549, voice your opinion at any of the contact points below:

USAirways customer relations: http://www.usairways.com/awa/content/contact/customer_relationsform.aspx

Media contact is 480 693 5909 or media.relations@usairways.com

AIG aviation can be reached at aviationinquiries@aig.com

Please follow the coverage below.

AIG and US Airways Seek to Cover Up Flight 1549 Recovery Photos

The Online Photographer http://theonlinephotographer.typepad.com/the_online_photographer/2009/03/aig-and-us-airways-seek-to-cover-up-flight-1549-recovery-photos.html

AIG and U.S. Airways Nix Flight 1549 Recovery Photos

PDN: http://www.pdnonline.com/pdn/content_display/photo-news/photojournalism/e3ie60616bd56e87859ecb0da3c922ae84d

Stephen Mallon and the Salvage of Flight 1549

Stellazine: http://stellakramer.com/blog/2009/03/stephen-mallon-and-salvage-of-flight.html

Stephen Mallon website

http://stephenmallonphoto.blogspot.com/2009/03/help-free-photos-of-flight-1549.html

Free flight 1549 photos t-shirt coming soon!

http://stephenmallonphoto.blogspot.com/2009/03/free-flight-1549-photos-t-shirt-coming.html

?Thank you all for your support! Hopefully AIG and USAirways will change their mind soon and let me have my photos back on line and hopefully i will be able to produce that dream show i had in mind when I originally finished the images for Weeks Marine and J. Supor and Son.? Steve Mallon http://stephenmallonphoto.blogspot.com/2009/03/usairways-original-request-for-my.html

Stephen Mallon website

http://stephenmallonphoto.blogspot.com/2009/03/help-free-photos-of-flight-1549.html