Passengers on the US Airways flight that crash-landed into the Hudson River Thursday afternoon praised the actions and courage of the pilot, a safety consultant with 40 years of experience in the aviation industry.
Sources tell CNN that Chesley B. “Sully” Sullenberger was piloting US Airways flight 1549 from New York’s LaGuardia airport to Charlotte, North Carolina, when at least one of the plane’s engines failed…
Sullenberger’s wife told CNN that she was stunned to hear the news from her husband after it was all over.
“When he called me he said, ‘There’s been an accident.’ At first I thought it was something minor, but then he told me the circumstances and my body started shaking and I rushed to get our daughters out of school…”
The crash-landing has…earned the former fighter pilot and private safety consultant accolades from state and government officials.
New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg commended the pilot for not leaving the plane without checking to make sure every passenger had been evacuated.
He has been a pilot with US Airways since 1980, following seven years in the U.S. Air Force.
His resume — posted on the Web site for his safety consulting firm, Safety Reliability Methods — lists piloting procedures, technical safety strategies, emergency management and operations improvement, as areas of industry expertise.
He served as an instructor and Air Line Pilots Association safety chairman, accident investigator and national technical committee member, according to a biography on the site. He participated in several USAF and National Transportation Safety Board accident investigations, and worked with NASA scientists on a paper on error and aviation, his site says.
For the passengers on flight 1549, Sullenberger’s skill and expertise were apparent.
Not an important point; but – this wasn’t a “crash” landing. It was an emergency landing; but, Sullenberger’s skill and cool kept it from being a crash landing. The important point being – everyone walked away.
#31–RBG–Roger That. That video is the Indonesian crash that was not due to pilot error as explained by my post above and here ((short and worth the read)):
http://theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/RTGAM.20090115.wcrash_landing16/BNStory/International/home?cid=al_gam_mostview
The problem with selecting ONE hero out of the herd is it makes the rest of us look like Paddy. Its just not right.
Shoot, we used to do water landings all the time in the Caribbean…of course it was in a seaplane Har!!! (slapping knee……)
making news out of no news
I think Capt. Sullenberger has certainly earned his graduation from “Pilot” to “Aviator”.
Well done, Sully.
32 bobbo.
Capt. Abate’s job was complicated by the fact that he had lost hydraulic power and was fending off the hijackers as he attempted to ditch.
And your point was…?
RBG
#36–RBG==my point, as usual, is just what I posted. You left out: “Because he was unable to lower the flaps, the 767 hit the water at nearly 320 kilometres an hour.” That with no hydraulic pressure (see note) means that your repetitive posting of that video clip under the notion that pilots without skill can’t land an aircraft in water is in error.
Note: each airplane is different but most jet engines with windmilling turbine blades (ie–engines that have lost fuel rather than being blown by multiple bird strikes) will develop oil pressure sufficient for flight controls until near the flare maneuver–others don’t. I would think that even a terrorist would let a pilot land a dead stick a/c, so I don’t know what that data point means. In short, I don’t know if the Indonesian crash pilot showed a lack of skill or not but MY ASSUMPTION is he was qualified which means absent something else going on, be should have been going slower on impact and his wings should have been parallel.
EVERY FIRST PILOT you see on a commercial aircraft should in fact have all the skill and judgment that Sully displayed. He is the STANDARD, not the exception. Simple point really, lost in the rah, rah of mindless emotions being manipulated.
bobbo, just think of what they would be saying about Sully if he had crashed the plane given his credentials.
I would’ve considered it to be a miracle if he had landed on a sandbar that was not there before he hit the water. An “attaboy” is well deserved but the ticker tape parade is a little much.
#38–guy==given our mindless stenography pool that passes for our national media and the lapdogs of consumer culture that laps it up, I’m sure that Sully would have been a HERO no matter what he did, absent pulling a DB Cooper out the First Class Door (yes, I know.).
Normally reliable Jim Lehrer on Newshour has raised the bar another notch: Sully is now a “SUPERHERO.” You see the secular mindrot working its way. Rather than being a competent well trained pilot performing his assigned duties according to printed check lists and after dozens of simulated practice runs, the ‘EXPERTS’ on News Hour reported the events that took place were “beyond contemplation.”
Everywhere I look, its: crap, crap, crap!
They also interviewed his trophy wife. Nice lady. Very respectful of the families source of income. LANDING her, absent his income, does make him a HERO in my book.
I agree an “atta boy” is well deserved==and maybe a dunking in a swimming pool. No time off to reflect though as he probably only flies 7 days a month.
Its true, I’m just nothing but jealous on 5-6 levels. Can’t wait for the movie of the weak.
Short read about bird strikes. I would think a real thin real strong wire mesh bird guard would not be “horribly” inefficient. Again with conclusions rather than the facts so that readers can apply their own values.
In any case, mesh over the engine would incur only the cost of increased fuel consumption==so how much money/pollution are 288 lives worth over a 10 year period?
Geese are seasonal and locational. I wonder if a change in flight path would increase the odds of avoiding birds. Work “with” the bird threat rather than force our views on them a la BushtheRetard.
http://newscientist.com/article/dn16438-comment-why-we-cant-stop-birds-downing-aircraft.html?DCMP=OTC-rss&nsref=online-news
#7 – god
>>Ya know, bobbo – more reading and less
>>mouthing might make your comments worthwhile.
>>Not worth taking to the time to correct
>>either your poor reading skills or essential
>>ignorance.
Amen.
There’s a reason you’re god, god.
Heh, heh. All faith and conclusion.
No analysis.
A pet rock is more engaging.
Christ, Bobo, did you catch this pilot getting some nookie offa yo momma, or what?
You’ve sure got your panties in one heck of a twist over any congratulations this fellow gets.
Mustard–no problems with congratulations–he deserves the attaboy. Its hero worship as if he was any different than the rest of his similarly situated and competent brethren.
I’ve detailed it above and in the other thread.
Heroworship is a kind of non-think that pervades our society==allowing BushtheRetard to get elected the SECOND TIME, and not get impeached.
Its all a single package showing just how stupid the American Electorate Is. Quite too many of those retards are proud to not only still support BushtheRetard, but also lay in place the hurdles and traps to foul Obama in his task to fix this mess.
Can’t you see its all the same issue?
Bobbo, Paddy-o:
Would you PLEASE take your hissy-fight outside?
How about it?
Now. Back to the news story. (If you don’t think it deserves to BE a news story, see if any of the passengers agree with you.)
This is why senior, experienced, highly trained competent pilots get the big bucks (not as big as before, but…) — so that when that one-in-more-than-a-million thing happens, you have the best possible chance of a positive outcome. Wouldn’t it be nice to apply similar standards to the people who pilot, say, our multi-billion-dollar corporations, and maybe even governments?
#40, Bobbo,
Mesh sounds like a good idea, but has 4 flaws I can think of:
* Turbulence introduced into the engine intake & increased drag / decreased output
* Dead weight
* Cleaning req’d., probably after each flight
* Just like a Slap Chop, a bird hitting it at 250 kts. is going right on through. A large bird is taking the mesh with it, dramatically increasing the chance of destroying the first turbine stages.
Aside: Look at the attitude of the plane in the water. The CG looks like it’s just aft of the wing root, about right (assuming the engines are already gone). I’m amazed it floated.
#47–Bubba==yea, “the best evidence” is that some kind of screen would not work, I’m just playing with the contra position. We develop new metals and what not all the time, and I am “assuming” the mesh could slice the goose up into ingestible bits.
I know in West Texas they do Sand Hill Crane Alerts by having spotters in field huts when they are migrating. Planes just wait on the cranes to do their thing.
I wonder what departure route changes could be made to avoid the goose flyway?
Some problems are difficult, others can be real simple if one decides a solution really has to be found.
At climb out speed with flaps down, I’d bet money if he had been looking, he could have seen them? Avoiding them would still have been a challenge. Course, I’m just remembering when my eyes were “better than” 20/20.
# 46 Uncle Patso said, “Bobbo, Paddy-o:
Would you PLEASE take your hissy-fight outside?”
You need your meds adjusted. I hadn’t posted for 12 hours when you posted this.
I didn’t know they allowed “patients” access to the internet.
Responding to Bobbo and his ilk is like buying something from spam. It just encourages more.
Just stop!
You clowns are ruining this blog.
Is anyone going to investigate whether Geesepeace and its push for an environemntally friendly way of controlling geese had an impact?
Video and some the rescue of bobbo’s routine landing.
#28
You never know with squeaky clean old men.
QB–none of the video’s on that site open for me. I hope my puter isn’t channeling “getreal.” He’s right though, these blogs would be so much more interesting if no one would respond to the entries.