Those Magnificant Men in their magnificant Flying machines

Hudson Miracle is a happy ending to a trying situation. An ordinary flight 'might' be a piece of cake for a well trained pilot with computers doing a lot of work, its the out of ordinary that requires exceptional skills and training. I am reminded of earlier stories I read that illustrates how its also a matter of mind and skill.
One story I am reminded off was where one of the wheels on a plane got blown off (cant remember whether it was while take off or during the flight). Now a plane is a massive beast. So apparently landing with a wheel blown is somehow more dangerous than a wheel blown during a car ride. And the airport in question had a concrete wall some way off the runaway. Now with a wheel blown it would have been probably that the plane would skid and apparently there was significant danger of it skidding towards that wall.
And this is where the skill and prowess comes in. The solution itself was elegant - simple, but not easy. The pilot(s) came down at high speed purposely hitting the runway with the other wheel and whizzing off. 3 attempts and the wheel on the other side blew too lending that necessary symmetry to the plane essential to avoid the slammer of a wall. The plane then landed safely staying on the runway. Wouldnt have been easy on the passengers especially the dive and surge but hey then landed all right!
Another case I recollect was a case of a plane going down under overflying Asia. Somewhere near Indonesia or some place in Pacific a volcano coughed spewing ash all over. Now a lot of ash is carbon. So this plane going high up met the ash and ended up all sooty. So much ash that the engines got choked!
Attempts to revive the engines consternating the passengers. Unburnt carbon can burn and engines seemed on fire. No good. So what do the pilots do? Sit back and simply pray? No Sir we will think of something almost wickedly cool. So these bright folks actually came up with an idea.
The plane was taken to a much lower altitude. Now planes can glide a lot and I am not sure if the engines were totally knocked off or as the fire spewing remark indicate, they had some juice though not enough. So now at low altitude the air gets thicker, a lot thicker (which is why these jets fly so high, thick air means a lot of resistance). So this air now starts acting like a giant blower (the kind that sometimes comes with vacuum cleaners) and it cleaned off the ash that was filled in the engine and there you have the engines back online. Whew! But hey it ain't the end of story. After all an ash bath wont just dirty your engines, it'll mess up your windshields as well. So the wind screen is caked and so we have no visual. Almost no. Apparently a corner had some visibility. So the brave co-pilot stands on the seat and looks out relaying instructions while the captain lands the plane! Wheeewh!
Then there is this case of a jetliner pilot in Canada who was a hobby glider too and one fine day found this engines gone kaput while in the middle of a flight. The cool dude actually glides the plane for almost 250 kilometers to a nearby disused airfield. The locals enjoying their usual cycle races on the paved tarmac had the scare of their lives but the plane landed safely as a glider.
The best story - my recollections are sketchy but it was I think a FedEx plane flying transatlantic. This case apparently got the pilot a medal for bravery and none deserved it better. Now FedEx had a policy that any employee can travel in their planes - these were old days, and a bloke did travel. This bloke was depressed, suicidally depressed and harboring some notions of deep injury done by FedEx. So the plane is over Atlantic coming to US and in between the cockpit door opens (those were easy old days remember) and this traveling bloke comes in with an axe (those were easy old days remember) and hits the caption and the co-pilot. The captain takes a hit and gets paralyzed on side. The co-pilot is also severely injured. So imagine you are those pilots, critically injured, being stricken and are also flying. Not the easiest of time to be thinking one.
So the captain sees the attacker behind the co-pilot getting ready for a fresh heave. Thinking quickly he turns the plane nose up. The co-pilot falls behind and he along with the attacker slide to the rear of the plane. Amazingly maybe because of survival instinct or because he and captain were on same wavelength the co-pilot realizes this is lucky and holds on to the attacker (who maybe did get injured himself in this slide, i do not know) so that he is unable to strike further and both stay in rear grappled.
Meanwhile the caption radios US which arrange for immediate touchdown as soon as the plane arrive and the captain, semi paralyzed flies the plane alone and manages to reach US and land. Amazing story.