Sully Sullenburger - FU Hero
Chesley "Sully" Sullenburger III. The passengers on US Air flight 1549 out of La Guardia could not have been luckier in terms of the pilot who brought them down safely in the Hudson River after taking big birds down both engines on the A320 he was piloting. The details are coming out on the net and we at FU want to add Sully to our Hero department immediately for saving multitudes of people on the ground and in his jet with accurate snap decisions made in seconds with dozens of variables to sort through. Sully is a 57 year old commercial pilot who started out in professional aviation as an F-4, US Air Force fighter pilot. A graduate of the Air Force Academy, owner of an aviation safety consulting firm, involved ALPA union member in terms of safety related issues and with over 19,000 hours of commercial and military flying are just a few of this man’s accomplishments up to the point of impact last week in the Hudson river.
Sully was the monitoring pilot when they took the birds, believed to be Canada geese, down both engines. The A320 is designed to take up to five birds in each engine and still operate at 75% power. The tests were done with the bird weight 
approximated at 1.5 lbs. Canada geese can be up to 13 pounds and the data is not out yet as to how many ran through Sully’s motors. The mishap happened at 3000 feet one minute after takeoff. Sully took the controls from the first officer and tried to start the engines to no avail. Departure control was asking him if he could make an alternate smaller airport and Sully told them “no; we’ll be in the Hudson”. He made almost a 180% turn, lined up on the Hudson and put her down beautifully. He calmly took charge of his situation and saved the lives of his crew, passengers and many on the ground by making selfless decisions impacting literally thousands of people. Sully was the last person off of the jet as he made two sweeps to assure no one was left behind.
For his kickass actions, we at FU thank him and induct him into the FU Hero Department. New York owes this man more than they know. He is a truly a selfless hero.
Comments:
it certainly had enough glide to make it back to
runway 13 at LaGuardia.
From Jolly: Frank, are you bagging me? The only chance this guy had to minimize possible ground kills, not to mention killing everyone on board was to do what he did---and he had less than a minute to make the call.