12 years ago today. This happened 5 days before Obama took office????

[underpants]

Today in History, January 15, 2009
Pilot Sully Sullenberger performs “Miracle on the Hudson”
On January 15, 2009, a potential disaster turned into a heroic display of skill and composure when Captain Chesley Burnett Sullenberger III safely landed the plane he was piloting on New York City’s Hudson River after a bird strike caused its engines to fail.

[CatWoman]

1. K; R

[Karadeniz]

2. I don't at all remember its being so close to the inauguration!!!

[sandensea]

25. What's more, it was often described as a fitting metaphor for the disastrous last days of Dubya

As well as a hope that it might be a good augur for the incoming administration.

And here we are again - awaiting a good storm pilot.

[unblock]

3. If they happened today:

"I'm not getting on the *left wing*! Every body get on the right wing!"

"No we'll be lopsided and all get wet"

"Fake news! I have a right to be on the right wing!"

[NNadir]

5. Trump would say, "Nobody knows about landing planes on rivers better than me."

Last edited Sat Jan 16, 2021, 01:36 AM - Edit history (1)

[MyOwnPeace]

7. Or, maybe......

"Fake news - they're at the airport!"

or: "That plane would sink if we used the Democrat "clean water" standards.

or: "Only I could have put that plane on the runway where it was supposed to be."

or: "Lazy Sully is trying to make me look bad!"

CONGRATS, Captain Sully - a TRUE American Hero!

[Dukkha]

26. Crisis actors! There was no plane!

show us the manifest!

[Kitchari]

4. Significant

Sully the experienced pilot hero and how he saved all those people. An auspicious sign for the incoming President Obama

[MustLoveBeagles]

6. President Elect Barack Obama invited him and the rest of the crew to the Inauguration

At the invitation of President-elect Barack Obama, Chesley B. "Sully" Sullenberger, the hero pilot of the US Airways plane that landed in the Hudson River last week, and his family will attend Tuesday's inaugural festivities.

An aide to Obama said Sunday evening that all five members of the crew have been invited to the inauguration. The aide spoke to The Associated Press on condition of anonymity because details were still being worked out.

It was not yet clear where, or with whom, Sullenberger would sit at the inaugural but the seat was expected to be fairly prominent.

In addition, Obama also promised to take the entire crew on Air Force 1 whenever they would like to do it, NBC News reported Monday

https://www.nbcnews.com/id/wbna28730605

[underpants]

8. A class act with good staff around him

[thucythucy]

9. And Clint Eastwood then directed a film

that was supposedly "based on the true story" but which made up a bunch of bullshit scenes and dialogue to make federal regulators look bad.

It was so full of BS he had to change some of the names of the actual people involved to keep from being sued. Sully himself disavowed the film.

Republicans just have to spoil everything.

[underpants]

10. Sully gave a withering speech to Congress about his pension

and how that effects retention and entry into the piloting world. His opening statement was brutal.

[thucythucy]

17. I didn't know that. I do recall the airlines trying to get out of their pension obligations

which is infuriating.

The Eastwood film had this plot where the Feds tried to scapegoat Sully, and invented this whole scene where the investigating commission tried to blame the pilots, saying they could have returned to the airport but panicked and so landed in the Hudson. It never happened, and was put in the film to further Eastwood's anti-government mania.

Four years later he'd debate an empty chair at the Republican National Convention, pretending it was President Obama. Just another instance of his intellectual dishonesty.

[underpants]

19. I saw the film. I thought that was a stupid angle to take.

Maybe as part of it but not the main theme.

[ecstatic]

15. Are you talking about the movie called Sully or something other that?

If so, thanks for the warning. That was on my watch list.

[thucythucy]

20. Yes.

It's a well made movie, especially the scenes re-enacting the bird strike and the landing, but the whole part--basically the second half of the film, about the feds trying to screw the pilots never happened.

[Danmel]

11. We were on a plane two behind that flight at LaGuardia that day

Our daughter had been accepted to Tulane University and we were traveling to New Orleans to visit the campus.

We were held on the runway and the crew told us we would be seeing a lot of activity because a plane had gone down. At that time of course, we didn't know about the circumstances. They let us call our family members to let them know we weren't on the plane that went down. This was before it even made the news.

We were held for about 3 hours and missed our connection in Atlanta. Before we even took off, we were watching the pictures of everyone on the wing of the plane in the Hudson on a fellow passenger's BlackBerry. Landed in New Orleans around midnight central time. Our flight was originally scheduled for just after 3 pm eastern.
That was something!

[underpants]

13. Wow. How about that.

12 years ago. My daughter wasn’t even in school yet

[Danmel]

16. My daughter just turned 30!

Crazy

[underpants]

21. Yeah I was figuring that.

What a huge leap of time.

[ecstatic]

12. Amazing! I still need to watch that movie. Nt

[dalton99a]

14. Kick

[electric_blue68]

18. 12 yrs!? Wow, I guess so, then. Yay, Cptn Sully!

[demtenjeep]

22. such a wonderful man

and the first thought he had was to make sure everyone survived

[42bambi]

23. Every time I see that photo, I cry with relief for everyone on that plane and

am still in awe of "Sully".

[Cracklin Charlie]

24. Not a funny incident, but I always laugh.

Within an hour of this happening my funny daughter had composed a song.

“Sully Saves Us All”

The backup singers had one line...”Damn Geese”

[Joinfortmill]

27. God bless Sully.

[George II]

28. I was on my way home from work when I heard the report on WCBS radio. I thought for sure....

....that when I got home I'd be getting reports of a disaster. Thankfully that didn't happen.

I knew exactly what the initial flight route was - I'd flown out of LaGuardia from that runway probably hundreds of times over the years. It was truly a miracle.

[JHB]

31. I remember checking a map for where it came down and thinking...

..."Holy shit, he couldn't have picked a better spot if he'd tried."

It was right smack in the middle of the river between four ferry terminals. Three run by New York Waterways (Lincoln Harbor and Port Imperial in the New Jersey side, 39th St. terminal on the Manhattan side), plus the Circle Line at 42nd St. And, more for commuter-oriented NYWaterway than for sight-seer-oriented Circle Line, it happened while they were gearing up for rush hour.

So there were a bunch of boats, working or being prepped, that could drop what they were doing and head for the plane right away, at a half-mile distance, tops.

If it had been in a more remote location, assistance couldn't have gotten there so soon (especially not with the same capacity to get that number of people safely into a boat), so there would have been people slipping into winter waters and dying of hypothermia.

Far better than the usual "aluminum confetti and a hundred or more mourning families" we expect from major plane crashes, but not the "Wait, nobody died?" miracle of how it played out.

[Danmel]

32. Steve Mnuchin (yes, that one)

Was Executive Producer of Sully.
Enough said