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Friday, February 13, 2009

In case you thought what Chesley B. Sullenberger did was no big deal
Posted by Jill | 4:28 AM
As if to underscore just how miraculous and impressive last month's successful water ditching of a U.S. Airways flight by Captain Chesley B. Sullenberger was, I am waking up this morning to news that a Continental Express flight has crashed in upstate New York, less than ten miles short of the runway at Buffalo International Airport. As I write this, all 44 passengers, 4 crew members, and one person on the ground have been killed. It appears that the plane hit a house nose down and made no distress call prior to the crash.

My first thought when tying together this horrific and tragic incident with the water landing of the U.S. Airways flight last month was "If you're Chesley B. Sullenberger, you're going to wake up today and say 'Oh, shit...and here I thought life was going to get back to normal.'" Because you can bet that every news organization in the country, or at least in the New York area, is going to be scrambling to get "Sully"'s take on this.

Before Sullenberger made the decision to ditch his plane in the Hudson last month, air traffic control had instructed him to go to Teterboro Airport. If Sullenberger had tried to make it that far, what I'm seeing today from outside Buffalo could very well have been the scene in East Rutherford, or South Hackensack, or Secaucus, or Lodi.

Of course not all conditions under which flights go wrong are the same, but it's easy for cynics like me to roll my eyes when I see the kind of relentless hype that we saw last week when New York City feted the U.S. Airways flight crew, no matter how deserved the celebration may be. And this morning, watching the wee hours announcer on MSNBC making the ridiculous reassurance that this does not appear an act of terrorism (as if terrorists are going to target a prop plane on its way to Buffalo) and that the widow of a 9/11 casualty was on board (any excuse to tie a plane crash to the 9/11 attacks), just adds to the eye-roll factor.

But today there are 49 families who are waking up to the most horrific, life-changing news it's possible to receive; and 155 luckier families who will be reminded today of just what that flight crew did for them a month ago.

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6 Comments:
Anonymous Anonymous said...
sully would have brought that continental flight home safely. i weep for the dead.
2/13/09, 10:30 AM  
Blogger Melina said...
Are you fu*king kidding??
How could you possibly think that its acceptable to condemn the pilots and crew of that flight before the investigation or before the black box is looked at?

Its idiotic to assume that "Sully" could have saved that plane any more than the pilot. Unless there is proof that this is a case of pilot error rather than UNPREDICTABLE HIGH WINDS, which, if you turned on the news at all on the east side of the country, you were aware of, you should hold off your exclamations of what "Sully" would or wouldn't have done...and actually from what I've seen of him, he would be mortified by your statement!

I feel sorry for Sully to be put in a spot where he is superman and all other pilots are held up to him. Yes, he is a good pilot, and yes the conditions were right for him to make the decision that he had to make...but if he had been over the city a little more, and unable to get to the water, what then? Would he have flapped his arms and flown the plane to the water?
And if he could do that then why didn't he carry the plane through the sky to a landing strip?? Huh?

You've won my personal Most idiotic comment of the year so far award!...congratulations!
2/13/09, 11:49 AM  
Blogger Bob said...
I think Sully understands it's his 15 minutes of fame (except in New York, where he'll deservedly be legend), & there was no point in resisting it, & he'll reap the long term reward though his consulting business. As Jill notes, his most heroic act wasn't saving the passengers (which was skill & luck), but his quick decision to ditch in the river.
2/13/09, 1:51 PM  
Blogger Susan Blake said...
I think the parade of his heroism thru network tv has been our insatiable need for something good, some hero, something that ended well - in these times there isn't a lot of positive story coverage (I'm drowning in the sea of how bad stuff is nightly, regurgitated over and over!) But as usual, networks don't know when enough is enough - or maybe they just need to find a hero of the day to talk about - hey, they are out there daily, lets hear about ALL of them. suZen
2/13/09, 2:12 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...
As I write this [7:29PM] the news is reporting that it was ICE on the wings that did in flt 3407.

If so, even Sully couldn't have glided that plane [a brick by then! ice does that!] to a safe landing.
And without sounding too morbid, there isn't much open water near where 3407 went down!
2/13/09, 7:32 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...
Hey, you Dufus . . . Capt Sullenberger was NEVER instructed to go to Teterboro Airport. He was cleared to land on Runway One at TEB - should he decide to do so. There is a big difference between being instructed vs a runway being approved. You had better get your facts straight before making stupid assertions.
2/16/09, 5:35 PM  
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