Chesley Sullenberger Civil aviation career
How was Chesley Sullenberger involved in Civil aviation careers?
How was Chesley Sullenberger involved in Civil aviation careers?
Sullenberger was employed by US Airways and its predecessor airlines from 1980 until 2010. (Pacific Southwest Airlines was acquired by US Air, later US Airways, in 1988.) He holds an Airline Transport Pilot Certificate for single and multi-engine airplanes, and a Commercial Pilot Certificate rating in gliders, as well as a flight instructor certificate for airplanes (single, multi-engine, and instrument), and gliders. In total, he has more than 40 years and 20,000 hours of flying experience. In 2007, he became the founder and CEO of Safety Reliability Methods, Inc. (SRM), a firm providing strategic and tactical guidance to enhance organizational safety, performance, and reliability.  He has also been involved in a number of accident investigations conducted by the USAF and the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB), such as Pacific Southwest Airlines Flight 1771 and USAir Flight 1493. He served as an instructor, Air Line Pilots Association Local Air Safety Chairman, accident investigator, and national technical committee member. His safety work for ALPA led to the development of a Federal Aviation Administration Advisory Circular. 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 airline crew members.  Working with NASA scientists, he coauthored a paper on error-inducing contexts in aviation. He was an air accident investigator for an NTSB inquiry into a major accident at Los Angeles International Airport, which "led to improved airline procedures and training for emergency evacuations of aircraft". Sullenberger has also been studying the psychology behind keeping an airline crew functioning during a crisis.  Sullenberger was active with his union, serving as chairman of a safety committee within the Air Line Pilots Association.  He was a featured speaker for two panels, one on aviation and one on patient safety in medicine, at the High Reliability Organizations (HRO) 2007 International Conference in Deauville, France, from May 29 to 31, 2007. CANNOTANSWER
Sullenberger was employed by US Airways and its predecessor airlines from 1980 until 2010.
Highest Duty: My Search for What Really Matters is a 2009 memoir written by Chesley Sullenberger and Jeffrey Zaslow (1958–2012) describing the events of US Airways Flight 1549. The New York Times bestselling autobiography of Capt. Chesley “Sully” Sullenberger—the pilot who landed a crippled airplane in New York's Hudson River, saving the lives of the 155 passengers and crew—discusses leadership, responsibility, and service, along with his life story.

Clint Eastwood directed a 2016 film adaptation called Sully that received positive reviews from critics.

References

US Airways Group
Airbus A320 family
Hudson River
Autobiographies
Aviation books
Autobiographies adapted into films
William Morrow and Company books
2009 non-fiction books Jeffrey Bruce "Jeff" Skiles (born November 18, 1959) is an airline pilot for American Airlines. On January 15, 2009, he became globally known as co-pilot of US Airways Flight 1549, when he worked together with captain Chesley Sullenberger to land the aircraft on the Hudson River after the plane lost both of its engines. They were widely celebrated for landing the plane with no loss of life.

Skiles was flying as a First Officer on flight 1549 due to a staff reduction at US Airways; he had usually flown as Captain prior to the staff reduction and had slightly more flight hours than Sullenberger (though Skiles was relatively new to flying the Airbus A320).

Both of Skiles' parents, James Skiles and Deloris McKenney, were pilots during his childhood, and he became a pilot himself when he was just sixteen years old. He first worked flying cargo airplanes, and then worked for Midstate Airlines from 1983 to 1986. At the time of the emergency landing he had been with US Airways for 23 years.

Atul Gawande, author of The Checklist Manifesto, asserted that the successful emergency landing relied on the cooperation of Sullenberger and Skiles. Gawande's central premise is that even really experienced people in any field encounter rare events, and that successfully coping with the rare event requires first, the careful anticipation of future emergencies, and secondly, preparing a well thought-out list of steps to follow, in advance:

In his book, Gawande stated that, during an emergency, there are so many tasks to complete that the first officer is working at least as hard as the captain. Sullenberger had taken on the task of finding a safe place to land, and actually landing, leaving his experienced co-pilot Skiles the task of following the checklist to try to restart the jet engines. Gawande noted that Skiles was able to complete the checklist in the less than three-minute period between the bird strike and the landing, noting this was "something investigators later testified to be "very remarkable" in the time frame he hadand something they found difficult to replicate in simulation."

PBS interviewer Charlie Rose interviewed Skiles on February 10, 2009. During that interview Skiles predicted that Sullenberger would receive on-going attention, but his (Skiles') fifteen minutes of fame would end when he left Rose's studio. However, he has continued to be a well-known speaker on corporate organizational reform and crisis management.
 
The National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) conducted a lengthy and extensive investigation of the accident culminating in their published report dated April 4, 2010 stating, “The National Transportation Safety Board determines that the probable cause of this accident was the ingestion of large birds into each engine, which resulted in an almost total loss of thrust in both engines and the subsequent ditching on the Hudson River.”

After a formal review of their performance both Sullenberger and Skiles had their flight status restored, but Sullenberger retired in 2010. Sullenberger and Skiles flew together, on March 3, 2010, on a recreation of their original flight plan, on Sullenberger's last flight for US Airways. It was their second flight together, as the pair had never worked together before the famous flight.

Skiles went on to become the Vice President of the Coalition of Airline Pilots Associations (CAPA) that represents the interests of 28,000 airline pilots in safety and security issues. In this role he was instrumental in the creation of the First Officer Qualification rule, which significantly increased the requirements for training and experience of First Officers on the flight deck of US registered airliners. Skiles joined with the Families of Continental Flight 3407 and the National Air Disaster Alliance to mold the creation of and ensure passage of the Airline Safety Act of 2010, which significantly improved safety in the US airline industry; since its passage, there has not been a single fatality in a US airline accident.

In September 2009, Skiles and Sullenberger became the honorary Co-Chairmen of the Experimental Aircraft Association (EAA)'s Young Eagles program, that utilizes EAA's nationwide network of local chapters to offer free airplane rides to young people and expose them to general aviation and careers in aviation. EAA volunteers have performed over 2.2 million flights since the program's inception.

Skiles is a writer and since 2011 has published over 100 articles on safety and general interest aviation topics in nationally distributed magazines such as Sport Aviation, Flying, Air & Space, PilotMag, Midwest Flyer, Vintage Airplane, and the Physicians Executive Journal.

In the 2016 drama film Sully, directed by Clint Eastwood, Skiles is portrayed by Aaron Eckhart and Sullenberger by Tom Hanks.

, Skiles was working for American Airlines, piloting Boeing 787 Dreamliners.

References

1959 births
Living people
Commercial aviators
Aviators from Wisconsin
People from Oregon, Wisconsin
US Airways Group
American Airlines people
Experimental Aircraft Association On January 15, 2009, US Airways Flight 1549, an Airbus A320 on a flight from New York City's LaGuardia Airport to Charlotte, North Carolina, struck a flock of birds shortly after take-off, losing all engine power. Unable to reach any airport for an emergency landing due to their low altitude, pilots Chesley "Sully" Sullenberger and Jeffrey Skiles glided the plane to a ditching in the Hudson River off Midtown Manhattan. All 155 people on board were rescued by nearby boats, with only a few serious injuries.

This water landing of a powerless jetliner with no deaths became known as the Miracle on the Hudson, and a National Transportation Safety Board official described it as "the most successful ditching in aviation history". The Board rejected the notion that the pilot could have avoided ditching by returning to LaGuardia or diverting to nearby Teterboro Airport.

The pilots and flight attendants were awarded the Master's Medal of the Guild of Air Pilots and Air Navigators in recognition of their "heroic and unique aviation achievement". It was dramatized in the 2016 film Sully, starring Tom Hanks as Sullenberger.

Background

On January 15, 2009, US Airways Flight 1549 with call sign 'Cactus 1549' was scheduled to fly from New York City's LaGuardia Airport (LGA) to Charlotte Douglas International Airport (CLT) in Charlotte, North Carolina, with direct onward service to Seattle–Tacoma International Airport.
The aircraft was an Airbus A320-214 powered by two GE Aviation/Snecma-designed CFM56-5B4/P turbofan engines.

The captain and pilot in command was 57-year-old Chesley 'Sully' Sullenberger, a former fighter pilot who had been an airline pilot since leaving the United States Air Force in 1980. At the time, he had logged 19,663 total flight hours, including 4,765 in an A320; he was also a glider pilot and expert on aviation safety. First officer Jeffrey Skiles, 49, had accrued 20,727 career flight hours with 37 in an A320, but this was his first A320 assignment as pilot flying. There were 150 passengers and three flight attendants on board.

Accident

Takeoff and bird strike

The flight was cleared for takeoff to the northeast from LaGuardia's Runway 4 at 3:24:56 pm Eastern Standard Time (20:24:56 UTC). With Skiles in control, the crew made its first report after becoming airborne at 3:25:51 as being at  and climbing.

The weather at 2:51 p.m. was  visibility with broken clouds at , wind  from 290°; an hour later it was few clouds at , wind  from 310°. At 3:26:37 Sullenberger remarked to Skiles: "What a view of the Hudson today."

At 3:27:11 during climbout, the plane struck a flock of Canada geese at an altitude of  about  north-northwest of LaGuardia. The pilots' view was filled with the large birds; passengers and crew heard very loud bangs and saw flames from the engines, followed by silence and an odor of fuel.
 
Realizing that both engines had shut down, Sullenberger took control while Skiles worked the checklist for engine restart. The aircraft slowed but continued to climb for a further 19 seconds, reaching about  at an airspeed of about , then began a glide descent, accelerating to  at 3:28:10 as it descended through .

At 3:27:33, Sullenberger radioed a mayday call to New York Terminal Radar Approach Control (TRACON): "... this is Cactus fifteen thirty nine [siccorrect call sign was Cactus 1549], hit birds. We've lost thrust on both engines. We're turning back towards LaGuardia". Air traffic controller Patrick Harten told LaGuardia's tower to hold all departures, and directed Sullenberger back to Runway 31. Sullenberger responded, "Unable".

Sullenberger asked controllers for landing options in New Jersey, mentioning Teterboro Airport. Permission was given for Teterboro's Runway 1, Sullenberger initially responded "Yes", but then: "We can't do it ... We're gonna be in the Hudson". The aircraft passed less than  above the George Washington Bridge. Sullenberger commanded over the cabin address system to "brace for impact" and the flight attendants relayed the command to passengers. Meanwhile, air traffic controllers asked the Coast Guard to caution vessels in the Hudson and ask them to prepare to assist with rescue.

Ditching and evacuation

About ninety seconds later, at 3:31 pm, the plane made an unpowered ditching, descending southwards at about  into the middle of the North River section of the Hudson tidal estuary, at 	 on the New York side of the state line, roughly opposite West 50th Street (near the Intrepid Sea, Air & Space Museum) in Manhattan and Port Imperial in Weehawken, New Jersey. Flight attendants compared the ditching to a "hard landing" with "one impact, no bounce, then a gradual deceleration". The ebb tide then began to take the plane southward.

Sullenberger opened the cockpit door and gave the order to evacuate. The crew began evacuating the passengers through the four overwing window exits and into an inflatable slide/raft deployed from the front right passenger door (the front left slide failed to operate, so the manual inflation handle was pulled). The evacuation was made more difficult by the fact that someone opened the rear left door, allowing more water to enter the plane; whether this was a flight attendant or a passenger is disputed. Water was also entering through a hole in the fuselage and through cargo doors that had come open, so as the water rose the attendant urged passengers to move forward by climbing over seats. One passenger was in a wheelchair. Finally, Sullenberger walked the cabin twice to confirm it was empty.

The air and water temperatures were about  and , respectively. Some evacuees waited for rescue knee-deep in water on the partially submerged slides, some wearing life vests. Others stood on the wings or, fearing an explosion, swam away from the plane. One passenger, after helping with the evacuation, found the wing so crowded that he jumped into the river and swam to a boat.

Rescue

Sullenberger had deliberately ditched the airliner near boats in order to facilitate rescue. Two NY Waterway ferries arrived within minutes and began taking people aboard using a Jason's cradle; numerous other boats, including from the US Coast Guard, were quickly on scene as well. Sullenberger advised the ferry crews to rescue those on the wings first, as they were in more jeopardy than those on the slides, which detached to become life rafts. The last person was taken from the plane at 3:55 pm.

About 140 New York City firefighters responded to nearby docks, as did police, helicopters, and various vessels and divers. Other agencies provided medical help on the Weehawken side of the river, where most passengers were taken.

Aftermath

Passengers and crew sustained 95 minor and 5 serious injuries, including a deep laceration in the leg of one of the flight attendants. Seventy-eight people received medical treatment, mostly for minor injuries and hypothermia; twenty-four passengers and two rescuers were treated at hospitals, with two passengers kept overnight. One passenger now wears glasses because of eye damage from jet fuel. No pets were being carried on the flight.

Each passenger later received a letter of apology, $5,000 in compensation for lost baggage (and $5,000 more if they could demonstrate larger losses), and refund of their ticket price. In May 2009, they received any belongings that had been recovered. Passengers also reported offers of $10,000 each in return for agreeing not to sue US Airways.

Many passengers and rescuers later experienced post-traumatic stress symptoms such as sleeplessness, flashbacks, and panic attacks; some began an email support group. Patrick Harten, the controller who had worked the flight, said that "the hardest, most traumatic part of the entire event was when it was over", and that he was "gripped by raw moments of shock and grief".

In an effort to prevent similar accidents, officials captured and gassed 1,235 Canada geese at 17 locations across New York City in mid-2009 and coated 1,739 goose eggs with oil to smother the developing goslings.
As of 2017, 70,000 birds have been intentionally killed in NYC as a result of the Hudson ditching.

N106US, the accident aircraft, was purchased by the Carolinas Aviation Museum in Charlotte, North Carolina, where it (and the plane's engines) were put on display.

Investigation

The partially submerged plane was towed downstream and moored to a pier near the World Financial Center in Lower Manhattan, roughly  from the ditching location. On January 17 the aircraft was taken by barge to New Jersey. The left engine, which had been detached from the aircraft by the ditching, was recovered from the riverbed on January 23.

The initial National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) evaluation that the plane had lost thrust after a bird strike was confirmed by analysis of the cockpit voice and flight data recorders.

It was found in the investigation that two days prior to the accident the aircraft had experienced a compressor stall on the right engine, but the engine had restarted and the flight completed. A faulty temperature sensor was found to be the cause of the compressor stall. This sensor had been replaced and the inspection also verified the engine had not been damaged in that incident.

On January 21, the NTSB found evidence of damage from a soft-body impact in the right engine along with organic debris including a feather. The left engine also evidenced soft body impact, with "dents on both the spinner and inlet lip of the engine cowling. Five booster inlet guide vanes are fractured and eight outlet guide vanes are missing." Both engines, missing large portions of their housings, were sent to the manufacturer for examination. On January 31, the plane was moved to Kearny, New Jersey. The bird remains were later identified by DNA testing to be Canada geese, which typically weigh more than engines are designed to withstand ingesting.

Since the plane had been assembled in France, the European Aviation Safety Agency (EASA; the European counterpart of the FAA) and the Bureau of Enquiry and Analysis for Civil Aviation Safety (BEA; the French counterpart of the NTSB) joined the investigation, with technical assistance from Airbus and GE Aviation/Snecma, respectively the manufacturers of the airframe and the engines.

The NTSB used flight simulators to test the possibility that the flight could have returned safely to LaGuardia or diverted to Teterboro; only seven of the thirteen simulated returns to La Guardia succeeded, and only one of the two to Teterboro. Furthermore, the NTSB report called these simulations unrealistic: "The immediate turn made by the pilots during the simulations did not reflect or account for real-world considerations, such as the time delay required to recognize the bird strike and decide on a course of action." A further simulation, in which a 35-second delay was inserted to allow for those, crashed. In testimony before the NTSB, Sullenberger maintained that there had been no time to bring the plane to any airport and that attempting to do so would likely have killed those onboard and more on the ground.

The Board ultimately ruled that Sullenberger had made the correct decision, reasoning that the checklist for dual-engine failure is designed for higher altitudes when pilots have more time to deal with the situation, and that while simulations showed that the plane might have just barely made it back to LaGuardia, those scenarios assumed an instant decision to do so, with no time allowed for assessing the situation.

On May 4, 2010, the NTSB issued its final report, which identified the probable cause as "the ingestion of large birds into each engine, which resulted in an almost total loss of thrust in both engines". The final report credited the outcome to four factors: good decision-making and teamwork by the cockpit crew (including decisions to immediately turn on the APU and to ditch in the Hudson); that the A320 is certified for extended overwater operation (and hence carried life vests and additional raft/slides) even though not required for that route; the performance of the flight crew during the evacuation; and the proximity of working vessels to the ditching site. Contributing factors were good visibility and fast response times from the ferry operators and emergency responders. The report made 34 recommendations, including that engines be tested for resistance to bird strikes at low speeds; development of checklists for dual-engine failures at low altitude, and changes to checklist design in general "to minimize the risk of flight crewmembers becoming stuck in an inappropriate checklist or portion of a checklist"; improved pilot training for water landings; provision of life vests on all flights regardless of route, and changes to the locations of vests and other emergency equipment; research into improved wildlife management, and technical innovations on aircraft, to reduce bird strikes; research into possible changes in passenger brace positions; and research into "methods of overcoming passengers' inattention" during preflight safety briefings.

Author and pilot William Langewiesche asserted that insufficient credit was given to the A320's fly-by-wire design, by which the pilot uses a side-stick to make control inputs to the flight control computers. The computers then impose adjustments and limits of their own to keep the plane stable, which the pilot cannot override even in an emergency. This design allowed the pilots of Flight 1549 to concentrate on engine restart and deciding the course, without the burden of manually adjusting the glidepath to reduce the plane's rate of descent. However, Sullenberger said that these computer-imposed limits also prevented him from achieving the optimal landing flare for the ditching, which would have softened the impact.

Crew awards and honors

An NTSB board member called the ditching "the most successful... in aviation history. These people knew what they were supposed to do and they did it and as a result, no lives were lost."
New York State Governor David Paterson called the incident "a Miracle on the Hudson". U.S. President George W. Bush said he was "inspired by the skill and heroism of the flight crew," and praised the emergency responders and volunteers. President-elect Barack Obama said that everyone was proud of Sullenberger's "heroic and graceful job in landing the damaged aircraft". He thanked the crew, whom he invited to his inauguration five days later.

The Guild of Air Pilots and Air Navigators awarded the crew the rarely bestowed Master's Medal on January 22, 2009, for outstanding aviation achievement, at the discretion of the Master of the Guild. New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg presented the crew with the Keys to the City, and Sullenberger with a replacement copy of a library book lost on the flight, Sidney Dekker's Just Culture: Balancing Safety and Accountability. Rescuers received Certificates of Honor.

The crew received a standing ovation at the Super Bowl XLIII on February 1, 2009, and Sullenberger threw the ceremonial first pitch of the 2009 Major League Baseball season for the San Francisco Giants. His Giants jersey was inscribed with the name "Sully" and the number 155the count of people aboard the plane.

On July 28, passengers Dave Sanderson and Barry Leonard organized a thank-you luncheon for emergency responders from Hudson County, New Jersey, on the shores of Palisades Medical Center in North Bergen, New Jersey, where 57 passengers had been brought following their rescue. Present were members of the U.S. Coast Guard, North Hudson Regional Fire and Rescue, NY Waterway Ferries, the American Red Cross, Weehawken Volunteer First Aid, the Weehawken Police Department, West New York E.M.S., North Bergen E.M.S., the Hudson County Office of Emergency Management, the New Jersey E.M.S. Task Force, the Guttenberg Police Department, McCabe Ambulance, the Harrison Police Department, and doctors and nurses who treated survivors.

Sullenberger was named Grand Marshal for the 2010 Tournament of Roses Parade in Pasadena, California.

In August 2010, aeronautical chart publisher Jeppesen issued a humorous approach plate titled "Hudson Miracle APCH," dedicated to the five crew of Flight 1549 and annotated "Presented with Pride and Gratitude from your friends at Jeppesen".

Sullenberger retired on March 3, 2010, after thirty years with US Airways and its predecessor, Pacific Southwest Airlines. At the end of his final flight he was reunited with Skiles and a number of the passengers from Flight 1549.

In 2013, the entire crew was inducted into the International Air & Space Hall of Fame at the San Diego Air & Space Museum.

Media

Sullenberger's 2009 memoir, Highest Duty: My Search for What Really Matters, was adapted into the feature film Sully, directed by Clint Eastwood. It starred Tom Hanks as Sullenberger and Aaron Eckhart as co-pilot Jeff Skiles. It was released by Warner Bros. on September 9, 2016.

See also 
 List of airline flights that required gliding
 Aeroflot Flight 366, 21 August 1963, another aviation accident involving a ditching into a river
 Ural Airlines Flight 178
2009 Makhachkala Il-76 collision, 15 January 2009, another accident which occurred in the same date

Notes

References

External links

National Transportation Safety Board 
Accident Report
Investigation docket

Other links

 Twitter Moment - Sullenberger's recollections, ten years on

Accidents and incidents involving the Airbus A320
Airliner accidents and incidents caused by bird strikes
Airliner accidents and incidents in New Jersey
Airliner accidents and incidents in New York City
Airliner accidents and incidents involving ditching
Aviation accidents and incidents in the United States in 2009
Aviation accidents and incidents in 2009
Hudson River
1549
2009 in New Jersey
2009 in New York (state)
Articles containing video clips
January 2009 events in the United States
Weehawken, New Jersey