Chesley Sullenberger
Chesley Sullenberger
Chesley Burnett "Sully" Sullenberger, III is a retired airline captain and aviation safety consultant. He was hailed as a national hero in the United States when he successfully executed an emergency water landing of US Airways Flight 1549 in the Hudson River off Manhattan, New York City, after the aircraft was disabled by striking a flock of Canada geese during its initial climb out of LaGuardia Airport on January 15, 2009. All of the 155 passengers and crew aboard the...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionPilot
Date of Birth23 January 1951
CityDenison, TX
CountryUnited States of America
I've missed half or two-thirds of my children's lives,
My mother was a first-grade teacher, so I credit her with this lifelong intellectual curiosity I have, and love of reading and learning.
My message going forward is that I want to remind everyone in the aviation industry - especially those who manage aviation companies and those who regulate aviation - that we owe it to our passengers to keep learning how to do it better.
One of the things I teach my children is that I have always invested in myself, and I have never stopped learning, never stopped growing.
I think it's become an economic necessity for people to be able to learn and grow throughout their lives, because most people can't get through their entire career with one skill set. We have to keep reinventing ourselves.
You know, I think when people are in important positions in big organizations, they often get tied up with the minutia of managing money, managing things. They often forget that people deserve to be led.
We have made flying so cheap, I'm afraid we are going to make it cheap at any cost.
That's what we're trained to do.
People really are our most important resource, and people who don't realize that and choose not to live that way, choose not to lead that way, are paying a price for that in many of our companies, many of our organizations.
It's amazing what you can learn to get used to.
Each generation of pilots hopes that they will leave their profession better off than they found it.
There's simply no substitute for experience in terms of aviation safety.
Every day we wake up, we have an opportunity to do some good, but there's so much bad that you have to navigate to get to the good.
With the 2001 terror attacks, airline bankruptcies, pension terminations, loss of pay, changes in work rules — we're all working harder and longer than we used to.