Miracle On The Hudson

Jeff Skiles continued flying for American Airlines after the 2009 incident.

You can’t practice ditching a wheeled aircraft, so you must get it right.

As an airline pilot, I was anxious to watch Sully. Finally, I could attend an aviation movie without my wife having to bear witness to eye-rolling and corrective commentary. Most likely, as a Flying reader, you have already seen the film; if you haven’t, consider this a spoiler alert. Regardless, I thought it would be […]

“We’re going to be in the Hudson.” It was Capt. Chesley “Sully” Sullenberger announcing they were going to dead stick US Airways Flight 1549 into the Hudson River. It is a story most of us are familiar with. After the loss of both engines in their A320, Capt. Sullenberger and First Officer Jeff Skiles first […]

They didn’t call the successful landing of a U.S. Airways Airbus in the icy waters of the Hudson River a miracle for no reason. The Airbus makes a really lousy seaplane. But that afternoon in January 2009, Capt. Chesley (Sully) Sullenberger and his first officer Jeff Skiles called upon their decades of cockpit experience just […]

The Airbus A320 that Captain Chesley “Sully” Sullenberger famously ditched in the Hudson River is finally making the remainder of its journey to Charlotte, NC, 2 ½ years after the airplane originally took off for the destination. This time around the US Airways jetliner, which has been housed in a New Jersey warehouse since it […]

In 1944, his father, Wolfgang, wrote the definitive text on seat-of-pants flying, Stick & Rudder. Now, William Langewiesche has published a book examining details of the Miracle on the Hudson ditching. In his new book, Fly By Wire: The Geese, the Glide and the “Miracle” on the Hudson, the younger Langewiesche (who is an accomplished […]