Flight 1549 praise is being over done.

Forums: Flight 1549, Heroics, News, Silly, Hero
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I am amaze that the pilots of this fight are being praise so highly for not panicking and keeping calm and following their years of training.

Everyone who had any time at all in any type of aircraft had been in situations that had gone bad very bad and where you allow your training and your logic to take control.

Your emotions and your fears at such times are far in the background and this ability to perform in this kind of situation is common not uncommon in human beings.

I remember once taking off with my CG way off and I could not keep the nose of the plane down and was seconds from stalling out and the only emotion that I can remember having was a brief curse that a 747 pilot was at the field that day watching and I was about to !@@#$# in front of him.

Emotions tend to happen after the fact not during the situation.

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Type: Discussion • Score: 17 • Views: 15,860 • Replies: 271

@BillRM,

what's wrong with public recognition that someone did their job well?

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What Dag said.

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What Dag said!

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The usual news-reporting criterion is: if it bleeds, it leads.
This, for me, is a refreshing change.

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I disagree. He could have easily handled it wrong, landed slightly crooked, ect, and the plane would have torn apart. Everything lined up right for that flight, including the pilot. How often does something like this happen? It just doesn't.

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@BillRM,

Sure....Major airlines often glide their planes in without power in any engine.

My understanding is that it is so uncommon that it is NOT part of pilot training.

The pilot was able to do something he was not trained for and do it flawlessly. That deserves some attention.

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@dagmaraka,

I had zero problems with praising the man for skillful flying my problem is one TV show after another had been praising him for not losing his cool and for sounding very calm on the audio tapes.

No high hour jet pilot is going to not sound calm in such a situation that what their years and years of training is for and in fact most pilots with even a few hundred hours of flight time is going to sound just as calm as he did.

You are going over what you need to do at such times and have zero time to dwell on fears.

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@BillRM,

Well if I heard a thousand pilots in an emergency situation remaining calm in the face of what seems iminent death...

...I would be just as astounded on the thousandth time as on the first.

Not sure why you have a problem with people praising him for not losing his cool...just because that is the way it is supposed to happen.

They praise quaterbacks all the time for tossing touchdown passes...but that's why he is in the game--to toss touchdown passes.

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@BillRM,

so? if it was you on that flight and you managed to do the same, they'd be praising you. they praise doctors for good surgeries although they are trained for that. i get praised when i write something good...i'm also trained to do that. what is even the issue?

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@George,

I agree - with so much negative news lately, the country really needed this uplifting story.

And by the way how many successful water landings in a river have there been made in this sized aircraft previously? And where every single passenger and crew survived?

Seems pretty amazing.

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I think it's a good sign. And I see it as a good omen that it happened the week before we swore in our new seemingly-competent president. Maybe this country is finally starting to reward competence instead of giving tacit approval to the mistakes of incompetent idiots.

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He guided a plane full of people in a disabled aircraft into a freezing river, made a perfect landing, guided them all out and not one person was injured! That must be one of the most remarkable achievements in aviation history! That beats Lindbergh's flight! Give the man the praise he is due. I have never heard of a more successful rescue.

By the way Bill, how DID you finally get your nose down?

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@BillRM,

Why do you have a problem with someone being recognized for a job well done. Not only a job well done, but the saving of many lives in the process. You must have far too much time on your hands as well as having a feeling of inadequacy yourself if you find some kind of fault in all this.

I agree with what most of the other posters have written. He did much more than just remain calm.

The pilot did an outstanding job and should receive the praise that is due to him.

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@Intrepid,

My problem is not with the skill of the pilot but the assume that had been stated over and over that most people would panic and come completely apart if face with a life and death situation.

The look how cool he sound on the tapes is beyond being silly as any of the pilots leaving JFK that day would had sound just as cool.

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@BillRM,

Well, I was probably reading different articles than you. I haven't hear it repeated over and over, in fact I haven't read anywhere that most others would panic. Shrug, he still did a great job.

I am sure you would do the best job possible as well and calmly so, if it is recognition that you are seeking.

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@Linkat,

None. And this isn't even practiced on the simulator.

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@BillRM,

BillRM wrote:

My problem is not with the skill of the pilot but the assume that had been stated over and over that most people would panic and come completely apart if face with a life and death situation.

The look how cool he sound on the tapes is beyond being silly as any of the pilots leaving JFK that day would had sound just as cool.

Quite possibly. However, they were not flying the plane that encountered the problem. He was.

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@Intrepid,

He in fact did a nice job and he was also very lucky that it was near perfect conditions to do a water landing.

Now if you would like to talk about great flying the case of the plane that lost all flight controls but the ability to adjust the engines power and yet the flight crew somehow got the plane over a runway before crashing now that was flying. They save somehow half of the passengers on that one.

Afterward the FAA try to repeat the performed on a flight similator with a number of very high hours pilots and not one got near to a landing.

Oh on a side note the design team of the airbus who place a ditching switch that closed the openings on the plane should get a lot of the credit for how long the plane remained floating.

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Maybe the praise isn't just about his skill or how calm he was. Maybe it serves as a life lesson and example for all of us that remaining calm in the midst of an emergency gives you a more successful chance at bringing all your training and life experiences to work for your survival.

We read way too many times about deaths resulting from panic and hysteria in an emergency. This is an example that can't be repeated too often. By the way, it wasn't just Sully's calmness that was an outstanding example.

Every single person on the radio call performed their jobs with the same sense of calm, responsive training and experience. That too helped Sully and our emergency responders can never get enough praise for that skill that eats them up inside but also saves countless lives.

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