The Unsung Hero Left Out of ‘Sully’

Clive Irving in The Daily Beast:

Fear of flying has no easy antidote. It’s no good telling sufferers that flying is so much safer than driving on the expressway to the airport. That’s statistics, not the reality of the human condition. But there is one feel-good story that may be invoked to calm the fever: the moment in January 2009 when 150 airline passengers suddenly found themselves heading not for their destination, Charlotte, North Carolina but the ice-cold Hudson River in New York.

This is, of course, the Miracle on the Hudson. US Airways Flight 1549 had lost power from both engines after the engines ingested a flight of Canadian geese soon after taking off from La Guardia Airport.

Few passengers ever bother to know or even care about the names of the pilots to whom they entrust their lives. In this case none of the passengers (and much of the nation) would ever forget the name of the pilot, Captain Chesley Sullenberger, or just Sully.

Now Sully has rightly been elevated into the pantheon of those American heroes worthy of being played by Tom Hanks. TheClint Eastwood directed movie,Sully, is a surprise box office hit. It seems a good moment, then, to finally give credit to a hero so far unsung in this drama.

More here. [Thanks to Victoria Schindler.]