Captain Sully Sullenberger
Sometimes a hero is just a seemingly ordinary person thrown into an extraordinary situation. Such was the case on January 15, 2009, when Capt. Chesley (“Sully”) Sullenberger’s US Airways Airbus A320 hit a flock of geese shortly after takeoff from New York’s LaGuardia Airport en route to Charlotte, North Carolina. The strike caused both engines to permanently lose power some 2,800 feet up. “Sully,” as he’s affectionately called, had 208 seconds to land the airplane. In dramatic fashion, he put it down safely on the surface of the Hudson River, saving all 154 passengers and crew aboard as well as himself. A critically acclaimed film, “Sully: Miracle on the Hudson,” was produced in 2016, starring Tom Hanks and directed by Clint Eastwood.
We caught up with Sullenberger, a bona fide hero who is now 68, to recall his life-changing event a decade ago, as well as to comment on current affairs in the aviation business and in America. Below is Part 1 of edited excerpts from an exclusive multipart series.
Jim Clash: What were your immediate thoughts once you realized that the bird strike had rendered both of your engines powerless?
Capt. Chesley “Sully” Sullenberger: I remember vividly my first three thoughts in those first seconds. First, this can’t be happening. Having read about many accident flights, a very typical response rooted in disbelief. That was followed immediately by, this isn’t happening to me. In over four decades, I had never been so challenged in an airplane that I doubted the outcome. But I knew that this was going to be completely different. And my third thought was a realization that, unlike all of those other flights for so long, this one would probably not end on a runway with the aircraft undamaged. But I was okay with that as long as I could solve the essential problems.
Clash: In those 208 seconds after the strike, did you ever think you might die?
Sullenberger: I never thought I was going to die that day. But my body responded in a very human physiological way to this life-threatening stress. I was aware of that, as it happened in those first seconds. I could feel my blood pressure shooting up, my pulse quickening. I sensed my perceptual field narrow, a tunnel vision, because of the intensity of the stress, the startle response. But I was confident that we could find a way to solve this problem, that we would solve each problem in turn until we had solved them all, or as many as we could, to survive. I never thought about anything other than flying the airplane well, and solving the problems. I never thought about my family, never had any extraneous thoughts.
Clash: Did you have dreams later that instead of landing safely on the Hudson, a different, more catastrophic ending might have occurred?
Sullenberger: No, not after those first few days, not at all. Of course, a lot of time has passed and I’ve reflected upon this, processed and written about it, which is therapeutic. But not since the very first week have I had those kinds of dreams at night. Now, every day or two, I get a wonderful reminder when people recognize me and thank us for what we were able to accomplish. Yeah, even though it could have been catastrophic, the fact that so many people - strangers - rose to the occasion to make it their mission in life to save every life - plus a lot going right - gave us a good outcome.
Clash: You are a fairly low-key, shy guy. How does becoming a celebrity sit with you?
Sullenberger: I haven’t been shy since I was a kid, but I certainly value my privacy. It’s one of those things you don’t know how much you value until you lose it. My family and I think of the event in two phases: the trauma of the flight itself that each of us on the airplane and their families experienced, and then the sudden worldwide notoriety in the aftermath, which was traumatic in its own way. It was so sudden and overwhelming, like drinking from a fire hose times a million. You try very quickly to rise to the occasion, learn ways of living a new life, develop new skills and get better at existing ones to be able to effectively be public figures on the world stage. The short answer to your question, “How did I handle the celebrity?”: With great difficulty day by day. But it’s amazing what one can learn to do. This new profession, being a speaker and a public figure, temporarily at least chosen by circumstance to be a spokesperson for my profession, is not my natural temperament. I never sought the limelight. But now I enjoy it. It’s given me an additional sense of purpose. It helps.
One of the messages when I talk to audiences around the world is that, like much in life, aviation is a team sport and, of course, requires the efforts of many people to achieve the outcome we did. But despite all of my best efforts, I still get almost all of the attention. I’ve become the public face of this event, which, of course, is a very important job. It’s given me a lot of opportunities to have a greater voice about things I’ve cared about my whole professional life. I knew I couldn’t walk away. I felt an intense obligation, as did our first officer Jeff Skiles, when we first realized that this story was not going away like most do. We owed it to all of our colleagues who still face these challenges, to do this job, to speak up for them, because they didn’t have the voice that we now did.
(Editor’s Note: In subsequent parts of this interview series with Capt. Sullenberger, we ask him about the Boeing 737 Max, what he’s afraid of, the Tom Hanks movie about his Hudson River landing, his military flight training, how to land an A320 on water, whether he would take a suborbital flight with one of the space tourism companies, the biggest issues facing America and the aviation industry, depression and more. We’re just getting started. Stay tuned to the Forbes Lifestyle channel.)
