Hero pilot says splash landing in Hudson ‘surreal’

IN his first public comments about what it was like to safely land a passenger jet in the Hudson River, US Airways pilot Chesley “Sully” Sullenberger has described the ordeal as “surreal” and said the silence in the cockpit after both engines lost power was “shocking”.

In a brief interview with ESPN the night before the Super Bowl — where he and the crew were given a standing ovation — Sullenberger said that while he was guiding the plane to a splash landing he felt “calm on the outside, turmoil on the inside”.

The California pilot has been called a hero for safely landing the Airbus 320, which lost power in both engines after striking a flock of birds shortly after taking off from New York’s LaGuardia Airport. All 150 passengers and crew were rescued safely.

“It was very quiet as we worked, my co-pilot and I. We were a team. But to have zero thrust coming out of those engines was shocking,” he said.

His wife Lori Sullenberger said the two of them have been opening letters from well-wishers every night that are so emotional, “it allows both of us to express emotion about it all. We both sit there and cry”.

In an account of the ordeal published in The Dallas Morning News on Friday, Susan O’Donnell, an American Airlines pilot who was a passenger on Flight 1549, said that as the plane approached the water, the passengers “remained calm and almost completely quiet”.

O’Donnell praised Sullenberger’s leadership, saying he talked with passengers and crew after the landing.