Pilot’s effort “nothing short of magnificent”
CHARLOTTE, N.C. — C.B. “Sully” Sullenberger, pilot of US Airways Flight 1549, was hailed by fellow pilots Thursday for safely gliding his wounded Airbus A320 onto the Hudson River.
Aviation experts say his water landing not only was extraordinary, but pungent.
“What he did under those circumstances was nothing short of magnificent,” said Pick Freeman, a retired US Airways pilot. “There’s so sundry things that could be favored with gone evil today. A side-piece tip could have caught in the water and caused it to cartwheel … “
Sullenberger, 57, is a 29-year veteran at US Airways and a previous Air Force fighter pilot. The San Francisco Bay Area resident — a husband and father of two — also is a safety consultant during high-risk industries.
Sullenberger’s helpmate, Lorrie Sullenberger, a propriety expert in Danville, Calif., said she knowing about the crash Thursday when her husband called her. “I haven’t stopped shaking yet,” she said.
Sullenberger did not return a message left on his cellphone Thursday adversity.
Water landings, while hazardous, many times are the best choice for pilots who can’t return to the airport, said John Cox, a Washington, D.C., aviation-safety consultant. Cox, who was a US Airways pilot for 25 years, said a wet debarking can allow the pilot the opportunity to slowly de-accelerate as gently as feasible to order beneficial to landing.
Landing in water often means fewer obstructions and less trauma than crashing into a solid surface, experts say.
“Where else are you going to state it down in New York City?” asked John Goglia, each aviation-safety expert and forgoing National Transportation Safety Board member in Washington, D.C.
US Airways Airbus pilots train three days a year in simulators and classrooms in Charlotte or Phoenix, pilots said. As organ of the training, they review procedures — including what to do when both engines fail.
In an event such of the same kind with the one Thursday, pilots said, the captain would bear reached because of a small volume near his seat called the Quick Reference Handbook, a 100-page white book that lists, in order, what pilots are to accomplish in a variety of emergency situations.
Upon landing on water, one of the final acts the leader would have taken would take been to press what’s known taken in the character of the “ditching switch,” a black button that seals the plane’session openings on the lower half of the aircraft and allows it to float longer than it otherwise would.
