Pilot Praised for 'Masterful' Landing

[DeepModem Mom]

Source: CNN

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. Passenger Jeff Kolodjay offered "kudos" to Sullenberger for a landing that minimized damage to the aircraft and its 155 passengers and crew. "All of a sudden the captain came on and he told us to brace ourselves and probably brace ourselves pretty hard. But he did an amazing job -- kudos to him on that landing," said Kolodjay, who was sitting in seat 22A....

***

The crash-landing has also 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. "It would appear that the pilot did a masterful job of landing the plane in the river and then making sure that everybody got out," Bloomberg said at a press conference Thursday. "I had a long conversation with the pilot. He walked the plane twice after everybody else was off and tried to verify that there was nobody else on board -- and assures us there was not."

Sullenberger apparently was forced to make an emergency landing after geese were sucked into one or both of the jet's engines. An eyewitness working on the west side of Manhattan said the belly of the plane touched the water first.

An official who heard tape recordings of the radio traffic from Flight 1549 reported the pilot was extraordinarily calm during the event. "There was no panic, no hysterics," the official said. "It was professional, it was calm, it was methodical. It was everything you hoped it could be." The pilot and air traffic controller discussed options, including landing at Teterboro airport in New Jersey, the official said. Then there was a "period of time where there was no communications back, and I'm assuming he was concentrating on more important things."

Sullenberger's background in aviation appeared to have prepared him for such a situation. 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, Inc. -- 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. "I've flown in a lot of planes and that was a phenomenal landing," said passenger Fred Berretta said....

"It was an amazing piece of airmanship," said Peter Goelz, a former NTSB managing director.


Chesley B. "Sully" Sullenberger, a former Air Force fighter pilot, has been with US Airways since 1980.

Read more: http://www.cnn.com/2009/TRAVEL/01/15/usairways.landing/index.html

[hamerfan]

1. K&R! n/t

[qanda]

2. Good for him!

It's nice to see someone being praised for doing their job well.

[Rebubula]

3. Hero Indeed

Sully in 2016!!!!!!!!

[Eric the Blue]

4. Pension

Now can he get his pension back?

[Soylent Brice]

5. no shit.

welcome to DU.

[Hugin]

6. Seconded!

Good show!

[shireen]

7. let's praise the co-pilot too

media seems to have forgotten all about him! Pilot could not have done that spectacular landing without the co-pilot!

[Cha]

8. It was masterful and the timing

of where they were is a miracle. I can imagine how grateful they all are.

[Lorien]

9. Can we do away with ageism NOW????

come on, seriously?

[MindPilot]

10. I do not like that term "crash-landed".

You either crash, or you land. This was no crash.

My flight instructor used to lecture endlessly (or it seemed like it at the time) that he did not subscribe to the theory that "any landing you can walk away from was a good one."

His criteria was "if I felt it, it wasn't good enough."

If Mr Sidwell were still around I think he would make an exception for Captain Sully.

[DeepModem Mom]

11. Interesting!

DeepModem Dad used to fly a bit (not professionally). I think his instructor did subscribe to that "walk away" theory, and, in fact, I think I've heard DMD say that, in a sense, every landing is a "crash."

I agree with you, though. It didn't seem right for what happened yesterday to be reported on TV as a crash. Captain Sully landed the plane on the Hudson River.

DMD, of course, was blown away, and Twittering as reports came through. Thank God, he said, Sully didn't try to make it to Teterboro -- and made a "perfect landing" on the Hudson.