Hildy, he brought a powerless 50 ton airplane going 225 MPH down from 3200 feet. Nothing to it.
99 times out of 100 we'd have been reading about 155 dead people ... or more if they'd crashed in the city.
Posted on 01/18/2009 7:20:26 AM PST by suspects
Looking for this week’s classic American tale? Forget the rise of Barack Obama. It’s the fall of Flight 1549.
There, lined up on the wings of a sinking plane like kids patiently waiting for the school bus, was the real America.
Not to name any names, but there are those who believe American society is broken, that our national soul needs healing, that our citizens lack the character to even set our own thermostats. But I believe that the nation this unnamed person will be sworn in to govern on Tuesday is a much better place than many of his supporters (not to mention family members) believe.
And I offer Flight 1549 as Exhibit A.
Captain Chesley Sullenberger III faced a scenario that would embarrass the writers of “24.” A packed plane, both engines out, over America’s largest population center, with no place to land but a nearly frozen river.
Sully did it, and then stood so calmly on the floating jet afterward he could have been handing out drink vouchers for the club room.
Now he’s hailed as a “hero,” a “pilot’s pilot” and a shoo-in for Sen. Hillary Clinton’s vacant New York Senate seat if he wants the job.
But his wife finds the national hero talk “a little weird.” He was just doing his job.
That is such an American phrase. It’s heard often from cops who kick in doors in our worst neighborhoods and Marines who patrol worse ones in Iraq. Americans who do exceptional things nearly every day, and dismiss it as mundane.
And the good news is that, while the media focuses on cash-snatching pols and Treasury secretaries who can’t pay their taxes, America has far more Captain Sullenbergers than Sal DiMasis.
It’s tempting to dismiss Sully as ...
(Excerpt) Read more at bostonherald.com ...
HOWEVER, the plane had JUST TAKEN OFF, it wasn't high...the pilot DID HIS JOB...what he was trained for. And he did it correctly. I think it's symbolic of how low our country feels that we take something like this and make it a national achievement. It shows how much we need success in this country and how much we're looking for heroes.
Mark my words, the press will bring this guy down a bit..knock him off his perch. THAT'S the real America of today.
GodBarack is my Co-Pilot
His calm demeanor is most likely what kept the people on that flight becoming a panicked mob. He deserves the thanks of everyone.
The plane was at couple thousand + ft, gravity works the same at 200 or 2,000 feet.
..the press will bring this guy down a bit..knock him off his perch. THAT'S the real America of today.
The media already has compared Obama to this pilot. We can't have two heroes at once in America.
I take it you are not a pilot? At least what you say here leads me to believe that is the case. As pilots everywhere know, altitude is your friend. Altitude is time in an unpowered airplane. Go take a ride with an instructor sometime and ask him to climb to 3000' and pull the power back to idle. I think you will quickly find that your belief that he "did his job" will change dramatically. This guy, along with the flight crew, deserve every bit of praise they are getting. And, yes, I am a pilot.
I think you are wrong—my father was a Marine pilot (Vietnam) and he told me, after this Hudson landing, that he’d always considered large jet water ditchings to be “impossible.”
So I think Capt. Sully made miraculous aviation history rather than “just doing his job.”
(Whenever I’ve flown with my father, he always peeks into the cockpit upon entry and mutters things like, “I wonder if the pilot graduated at the top or the bottom of his class?” LOL.)
At the very least, I’m thrilled Capt. Sully has stolen some of the useless and overrated Obama’s thunder. I hope he continues to do so.
I admire men like Sully so much. My father is like this too—cool as a cucumber. (I guess Obama is too; perhaps that will be part of his saving grace; fingers crossed).
He's a hero to me because he just seems like a nice man who did an extraordinary thing and isn't looking for his next interview or book contract.
Can't help wondering who he voted for :-).
But there are many everyday people who are unsung heroes and heroines.
I think that's the point of Michael Graham's op ed.
Media props up entirely too many undeserving people, e.g. celebrities, Obama, Caroline Kennedy, Hildabeast. Then, although we ALL know exactly where these nitwits are coming from, the media casts them in a new favorable light.
And, not hardly a mention about the people who go about helping others without any kind of acknowledgement.
Anyone know how Americans can send him a note of thanks? Care of US Airways or something?
Hildy, he brought a powerless 50 ton airplane going 225 MPH down from 3200 feet. Nothing to it.
99 times out of 100 we'd have been reading about 155 dead people ... or more if they'd crashed in the city.
Neal Boortz (also a pilot) commented on his show on Friday that there have only been two passenger jets ditch in water where all souls survived. The other one was in 1963 in Russia involving an Aeroflot flight. There was also an incident of a 4 engine prop airliner that went down between Hawaii and California in the Pacific where everyone survived. I believe that one happened about 47 years ago.
Bump for later
Correct, and well said!
Col Jim
I agree that there are probably some media folks who want to wring a little bit more commercial time and advertising pages with a breathless “untold story” that takes a bit of the bloom off the rose. After they pump someone up, they do like to take them down, too.
Here’s an “untold” story that might be worth following up:
Commercial airline pilots and ferry captains save the live of 150 private citizens without the permission of their bosses, without the assistance and direction of the government, and without the interference of the news media.
Perfect!
You have the luxury of not being on that airplane that had just taken off. I assure you that if you were sitting in that cabin that you would not have given a damn how long it had been since it had taken off, your assumption being that there is somehow diminished merit in landing an airplane going twice as fast as a car on the highway upon a surface it was never intended to come into contact with. Note well that if I were to push you from the airplane’s door as it sat on the tarmack you would not survive a fall of that insignificant height. I think that it is entirely reasonable to assume the next time birds get sucked into a jet engine, the outcome will not be as mind-bogglingly miraculous.
This is what normally happens when you try to land an airplane in water:
http://www.livevideo.com/video/3210D366C7D14B669ED5048457EFAE65/plane-crashes-into-ocean.aspx
Sully also had enough wits about him in those few terrifying seconds, to engage the unique Airbus emergency watertight control, shutting all intake to the fuselage, except of course for the doors.
Your comment puts me in mind of this quote...
It is often easier to ask for forgiveness than to ask for permission.
Grace Murray Hopper
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