On January 15, 2009, Captain Chesley ‘Sully’ Sullenberger safely landed US Airways Flight 1549 in the Hudson river after losing both engines over New York City.
The entire flight took 208 seconds and would later be called the ‘Miracle on the Hudson.’
A bird strike is the collision between an aircraft and one or multiple birds. Ninety percent occur during take off or landing.
Flight 1549 was unique in that both engines were struck, removing all forward thrust at only 2800 feet.
Commercial pilots are trained to handle bird strikes, but no one had ever experienced dual engine loss at such a low altitude over a heavily populated area.
Captain Chesley B. ‘Sully’ Sullenberger III.
At the age of 16 Sully took his first solo flight.
After graduating as Outstanding Cadet in Airmanship Sully went on to be a USAF F-4 Phantom pilot.
Sully joins US Airways as a commercial pilot.
Sully joins the Air Line Pilots Association as a safety volunteer and accident investigator. He later helps to further develop air-safety training procedures in Crew Resource Management.
Sully clocked up 4,765 hours of flight time in Airbus A320 planes.
Sully is 57 when he takes control of Flight 1549. He had been flying for over 40 years with 19,700 flight hours under his belt.
