I put myself in that mother's position and said

"I put myself in that mother's position and said 'I would want help if my kids were on the plane,'" Vallie said. "She helped keep me calm, that little girl did. As a mother I thought 'I have to keep it together so she's not more scared than she already was.'"
Survivor Irina Levshina also found comfort with her fellow passengers.
When she got on the plane, Levshina said the woman sitting next to her blurted out that she was petrified of flying. But during the terrifying descent, she was the one who calmed people down, Levshina said.
"Girls, it's going to be OK. I'm the one that's afraid of flying,'" the unidentified woman told Levshina and another woman in the back row.
The women held hands and prayed.
Hope for any reprieve from a crash ended when Sullenberger announced over the plane's intercom, "Brace for impact."