It's an unforgettable image: terrified passengers standing on the wings of a plane, waiting to be rescued from the freezing Hudson River.

Oh, what a difference a day makes!  Today Emma Sophina is safe and warm, and thankful that she is alive.

"Most of us were just trying to bunch up and get really, really close together because it was so really, really cold," says Emma.

A professional singer from Australia, Emma was on her way to Charlotte, North Carolina to visit friends when the US Airways jet went down.

"The next minute, bang!  I thought we had hit a building," Emma remembers.

"You just heard the pilot say 'Brace yourself for impact,' but how do you brace yourself for impact when your plane is about to crash?" says 23-year-old survivor Bill Zuhoski.

INSIDE EDITION cameras captured Zuhoski being loaded into an ambulance moments after his rescue. 

"The impact, hitting the water, was just the most tremendous impact you could imagine.  My head sagged into it.  I lost my glasses," describes Bill.

Still trembling from his ordeal, Zuhoski remembers everything that happened as freezing water started flooding into the plane.

"For a second I thought I was going to die right there in the plane, I was going to drown.  The water was coming up so fast I took all my clothes off, thinking I'd be lighter, I might have to swim.  I was completely soaking wet in my underwear."

Rescuers covered Zuhoski with blankets so he wouldn't freeze to death.

And one man's fist pump said it all.  Passenger Ray Mandrell realized he had made it to safety, and was overjoyed.  "That was my celebration; everybody made it out of the plane," says Mandrell of his energetic gesture.

Mandrell was traveling with his friend Rene Williams, a music publicist from Florida.  She says she and other passengers held hands in prayer when they realized the plane was going down.

"The girl next to me, she saw me and she just started shaking, and I grabbed her hand and I looked at her and I said, 'Don't worry, you're going to be okay, we've got angels protecting us," says Rene.

Then there's the heartbreaking image of the youngest passenger onboard Flight 1549.  9-month-old Damian Sosa, who appeared with his 4-year-old sister Sophia and their parents on the Today show.  

"I could hear my husband trying to brace [Sophia] and her saying, 'Let me go,' and I said, 'We're going to be okay Sophia...we're going to be okay,' " said Tess Sosa, the mother of Damian and Sophia.

These are just a few of the amazing stories of survival from the "Miracle on the Hudson."

By Friday morning, many of those passengers were back at the airport, still trying to get to Charlotte.