'There has been an acident'

Times:

The unflappable pilot who landed his US Airways jet safely on the Hudson River in New York was described by a friend last night as one of the last American gentlemen.

Captain Chesley B “Sully” Sullenberger III, who guided the crippled US Airways Flight 1549 to an emergency landing in the river, just off Manhattan’s West 48th Street, was compared to David Niven.

Friends said they were not surprised that the courtly silver-haired aviator and crisis-management expert had saved the lives of all 155 people on board. His unprecedented feat of landing a commercial airliner on water without any loss of life has been dubbed “The Miracle on the Hudson”.

Captain Sullenberger’s wife, Lorrie, described last night how he called her to break the news, having pulled off one of the most dramatic escapes in aviation history. “There’s been an accident,” he told her, minutes after ditching his stricken Airbus A320 in the freezing river.

Both engines are believed to have been knocked out when the jet hit a flock of geese shortly after take-off from LaGuardia airport on Thursday.

After steering the aircraft away from heavily populated Manhattan, Captain Sullenberger glided the powerless jet down into the water intact, less than 300m from George Washington Bridge.

While the aircraft began to sink, Captain Sullenberger, 57, twice walked the length of the jet to ensure that all 150 passengers and four crew were off safely before leaving himself. Then he called his wife.

“At first I thought it was something minor, but then he told me the circumstances and my body started shaking and I rushed to get our daughters out of school,” Mrs Sullenberger, 50, said.

His wife, a fitness trainer, fought back tears of happiness as she described the shock on realising the scale of the incident. “My body won’t stop shaking. I think he’s fine. I’m relieved,” she said at home with her two daughters in Danville, California. “Like everyone else, I was stunned when he called. Your mind never goes through something like this.

“We’d just like to say that we are very grateful that everyone is off the airplane safely. And that was really what my husband asked me to convey to everyone.”

But she was not surprised that the former Air Force pilot with 40 years of flying experience should have played down his role. “I have said for a long time: he’s a pilot’s pilot and he loves the art of the airplane,” she said.

Mrs Sullenberger admitted that the family found it strange to hear the world calling her husband a hero. She said that when her two daughters went to sleep on Thursday night, “I could hear them talking, ‘Is this weird or what?’”

...

Sullenberger is also very smart. Fox News reports his accidentally released school records show him to have genius level intelligence. "Sullenberger, 57, led the pack even as a child, when he consistently tested in the 99th percentile in every academic category. His IQ qualified him for the "genius society" Mensa when he was just 12 years old." Some passengers can be glad he applied that intelligence to flying an airplane.


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