Chesley Sullenberger Chesley Sullenberger Chesley Burnett "Sully" Sullenberger III (born 23 January 1951) is a retired American airline captain who, on January 15, 2009, landed US Airways Flight 1549 in the Hudson River off Manhattan after both engines were disabled by a bird strike; all 155 persons aboard survived. Sullenberger is a speaker on airline safety and has helped develop new protocols for airline safety. He served as the co-chairman, along with First Officer Jeffrey Skiles, of the EAA's Young Eagles youth introduction-to-aviation program from 2009 to 2013. Sullenberger retired from US Airways after 30 years as a commercial pilot on March
History of the Hudson River in a map created by the cartographer John Carwitham. In 1939, the magazine "Life" described the river as "America's Rhine", comparing it to the stretch of the Rhine in Central and Western Europe. The area around the Hudson River was inhabited by indigenous peoples ages before Europeans arrived. The Algonquins lived along the river, with the three subdivisions of that group being the Lenape (also known as the Delaware Indians), the Wappingers, and the Mahicans. The lower Hudson River was inhabited by the Lenape Indians. In fact, the Lenape Indians were the people that waited for the explorer Giovanni da