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 the Hudson River. In 1965, governor Nelson Rockefeller proposed the Hudson River Expressway, a limited-access highway from the Bronx to Beacon. An 8-mile section was built from Ossining to Peekskill, now part of U.S. Route 9; the rest of the highway was never built due to local opposition. In 2004, Christopher Swain became the first person to swim the entire length of the Hudson River. The swim took 36 days to complete, along the entire 315 miles of the Hudson from the Adirondacks to New York City. Swain took part in the swim in order to bring attention to the