Flight 1549 praise is being over done.

Perhaps you should send a letter of objection to the Guild of Air Pilots and Air Navigators and ask them to withdraw their Master's Medal award. Tell them it is an insult to all other aviators for the crew of that flight to be singled out for praise when all they did was what any other of the thousands of pilots in the New York area might have just as successfully accomplished in the same circumstances. Give them examples of it successfully being done before in the same location in freezing temperatures with no deaths and no major injuries.

Please be sure to share with us their response to you.



By the way, you are correct. There is an additional emotional factor with it having been in New York. The last time airliners were seen by the public flying that low in the heart of the city, it resulted in the 9/11 World Trade Center tragedies. Part of the exuberance is a mass celebration of that not being the case this time.

It doesn't however, alter the "George Bush" you are attempting here.

you don't consider ditching in water unless you are over the ocean

Hawkeye you ask - should he have gone on to try and make the runway - well, who ******* cares? If he had, and had fallen out of the sky, killing hundreds of people, you'd be up here saying he should have landed on the water while he had the chance

I am well aware that we are not likely to know for a year or so, but this just adds fuel to the fire re the evaluation that we are engaged in hero worship that is divorced from the facts. The claim is that he is a hero is based upon the results, but he can only be a hero for real if he made the right call. We don't know this yet. I think that all we can say right now is "thank God all survived, and I hope that the pilot did the right thing".

Sullenberger enrolled at the United States Air Force Academy. He was selected as one of around a dozen other freshmen for a cadet glider program, and by the end of that year, he was an instructor pilot.[7] He graduated with a B.S. from the Academy and a masters degree from Purdue University[11] in 1973, majoring in psychology and basic sciences and receiving a number of academic awards.[12] In his graduation year at the academy, he received the Outstanding Cadet in Airmanship Award, which is given to the top flier in each graduating class.[7]

He served as a fighter pilot for the United States Air Force,[13] piloting McDonnell Douglas F-4 Phantom II's from 1973 to 1980.[14] He advanced to become a flight leader and a training officer, and attained the rank of captain,[12] with experience in Europe, the Pacific and at Nellis Air Force Base, as well as operating as Blue Force Mission Commander in Red Flag Exercises.[14] While in the Air Force, he was a member of the official aircraft accident investigation board.[15]

Sullenberger has been employed by US Airways or its predecessor airlines since 1980.[16][17] (Pacific Southwest Airlines, or PSA, was acquired by US Air, later US Airways, in 1988.) In total, he has more than 40 years of flying experience, and since 2007[12] has run his own safety consulting business,[5] Safety Reliability Methods Inc.,[13] which provides "emergency management, safety strategies and performance monitoring to the aviation industry".[5] He has also been involved in a number of accident investigations conducted by the USAF and the National Transportation Safety Board, served as an instructor, Air Line Pilots Association (ALPA) safety chairman, accident investigator, and national technical committee member.[13][18] His safety work for the ALPA led to the development of a Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) Advisory Circular.[14] He was instrumental in developing and implementing the Crew Resource Management course that is used by US Airways, and he has taught the course to hundreds of other airline members.[14]

Working with NASA scientists, he coauthored a paper on error-inducing contexts in aviation.[14] He has gained more than 19,000 hours of flight experience to destinations across North America, Europe and South America on Airbus A320s and similar planes since joining US Airways.[15] His résumé states that he was an air accident investigator for a National Transport Safety Board inquiry into a major accident at Los Angeles International Airport, which "led to improved airline procedures and training for emergency evacuations of aircraft".[15] Sullenberger has also been studying the psychology behind keeping an airline crew functioning during a crisis.[19] He holds an Airline Transport Pilot License for single and multi-engine airplanes, and a Commercial Pilot License rating in gliders, as well as an expired flight instructor certificate for airplanes (single, multi-engine, and instrument), and gliders.[20]

In addition to his bachelor of science degree from the United States Air Force Academy, Sullenberger holds a master's degree in industrial psychology from Purdue University[12] and a master's degree in public administration from the University of Northern Colorado.[12]

He is a visiting scholar at the University of California, Berkeley, Center for Catastrophic Risk Management.[3][14] He was a speaker for two panels at the High Reliability Organizations (HRO) 2007 International Conference in Deauville, France, from May 29 to 31, 2007.[14]

Then you might reconsider Georgeob's comments on loss of altitued in a 210 degree turn in a glide.

But I don't think you will.