Chesley Sullenberger — A true hero
Bookworm on Jan 16 2009 at 6:07 pm | Filed under: Barack Obama
In my post about Obama’s hubris, David Foster left this great comment:
Aviation analogy: Here we have a guy who once flew a Cessna 152 around the pattern, on a sunny day, with an instructor sitting right beside him. Now he has somehow become pilot in command of a large and complex airliner, in instrument weather and with thunderstorms about, and with several of the aircraft systems known to be broken and other behaving strangely. We are the passengers.
We want him to maintain a good degree of self-confidence, but we also want him to understand the seriousness of the situation. And especially we want him to focus on flying the airplane rather than daydreaming about how wonderful his press clippings will be after he lands the plane.
I couldn’t help but think about this as I read about Chesley B. “Sully” Sullenberger III, a man who is a hero by any definition of the term. As the WSJ explains, what he did was something that was considered more of a hypothetical possibility (despite all those talks about water landings) more than a reality:
Although commercial jetliners are equipped with life vests and inflatable slides, there have been few successful attempts at water landings during the jet age. Indeed, even though pilots go through the motions of learning to ditch a plane in water, the generally held belief is that such landings would almost certainly result in fatalities.
Capt. Chesley B. Sullenberger III, a veteran US Airways pilot, pulled it off while simultaneously coping with numerous other challenges.
In the minutes after takeoff, the pilot managed to maneuver past the skyscrapers of Manhattan and into the crowded Hudson River, even though the engines were disabled after apparently hitting a flock of geese.
Passengers said the plane was vibrating violently and the cabin began to fill with smoke. To reach its splashdown spot, witnesses said the jet glided over the George Washington Bridge before plopping into the water.
“The fact that passengers were able to walk off that airplane and wait on the wing for rescuers to arrive is remarkable. It’s amazing,” said aviation consultant Tommy McFall, a former airline pilot and retired accident investigator for the National Transportation Safety Board.
In addition to a spectacular feat of piloting, Sully established his bona fides as a true caption by being the last one to leave the plane:
The pilot “did a masterful job of landing the plane in the river and then making sure that everybody got out,” Mayor Michael Bloomberg said. “He walked the plane twice after everybody else was off, and tried to verify that there was nobody else on board, and he assures us there was not.”
“He was the last one up the aisle and he made sure that there was nobody behind him.”
Although I suspect Sully was borne and raised with the character he displayed yesterday, I wasn’t the only one to guess, immediately, that at least part of the skill came from military training, a supposition that proved to be true.
Sully is an expert, a hero and a natural talent. So far, in terms of the role he has undertaken, Barack Obama has shown none of these qualities to date. Let’s hope, though, that he is indeed a natural talent and can step forward and pilot the national plane to a safe landing at the end of his term.
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5 Responses to “Chesley Sullenberger — A true hero”
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Managing the landing was amazing skill. Walking the aisle twice, while his plane was sinking in 25 degree water, was heroism.
Dammit. 35 degree water.
Bookworm, you have uncovered the great irony.
We expect, with justification, that the pilot of our airplane will be mature, professional, experienced and tested, and tested, and tested. Yet we blithely hand the keys to the country to someone who does not meet those standards in any way.
Another irony, and I take this personally, is that Captain Sullenberger is 57 years old. The law was only recently passed to allow him to continue to fly beyond the age of 60. Now he can continue to 65, but must have a Captain qualified First Officer under the age of 60 to keep an eye on him. A few years ago a United 747 leaving Honolulu had a catostrophic failure of a baggage door which left the airplane in extremis. This Captain in another great feat of airmanship brought his plane to a safe landing. Within the month he was forced into retirement because he reached his 60th birthday. On the other hand we have Supreme Court Justices who are well into their 80s and dictating our future; and Senators making our laws and spending our money who cannot even drag themselves to the Senate floor. Only in government.
My brother recently took a trip out west and said when he saw the captain and noticed he was a white haired middle aged gentleman, his first reaction was : Thank God! Someone who knows what he’s doing!
As for the senators and judges: Amen!! Some of them may be old but they are still sharp and producive, then there’s Sen. Byrd.
I heard on the radio that this particular pilot also had considerable air time flying gliders. Knowing absolutely nothing about piloting, I have no idea if this is required, common or very unusual, but it may have been a skill that helped out in this incident. If so, then it seems like something that should be encouraged, though my impression is that big jets like this one have the gliding capability of a very large rock.
It really was a miracle that he didn’t take out the George Washington Bridge, apparently. That would have made a disaster into a mega-disaster.