Be Excellent To Each Other

Yup, I think he deserves some sort of forum award for being tremendously excellent, with perhaps little medals being given out to the divers, ferry boat operators and rescue services on the Hudson river. A plane gets hit totalling both engines and he manages to turn it around and land in a river, with no lives lost and only minor injuries to the passengers? That's skill. Achievements unlocked all round, I reckon.



"I do not need hair, for I am awesome."



This could have been a horrifc crash on the scale of the New York suburban crash of (was it?) December 2001. Instead he lands his jet in a freezing cold stretch of river in one of the most densely populated and skyscrapery cities in the world. Yay for you!

I doff my hat to you sir, and your crew.

Motion to send a BETEO Award to that fella proposed. Need a seconder.

Lucky bastards though. As far as I know this is the only successful ditching of a modern airliner, ever.

edit: seconded, an award for skill if not heroism, I'm pretty sure he wasn't keen on the idea of dying either.

I salute you, Captain Sullenberger.

Oh yeah. I'm sure he could rise to the hero-courage status if need be, being awesome, but this was a matter of skill and thus the award shall be judged on that merit. Bet it would take nerves not to flinch and muck it up, though, like I do in tricky bits of Audiosurf.

There was a lot of air in the wings instead of fuel, which helped.

But saying that it was an amazing landing

They keep saying on the news that it was really light on fuel. It's a short haul plane though, this 600 mile trip was pretty average, it would have had a good amount of fuel on board.

Fair enough..

Mad, MAD props (pun intended) to him. I used to practice belly landings in Warbirds and getting it so you survive without the plane being torn to shreds or just disintegrating on contact was very very hard.

I ditched in water a fair few times in IL-2. Nothing to it.

I hope that when they took him off the plane and on to the ferry, he struck a match on the railing, lit a cigar and then made some witty, light-hearted quip.

"I think it might be flooded."

He deserves an award for his name. Awesome.

I bet that plane stank when they opened the doors.

The man's a legend. I am going to demand that he flies all of my planes from hereon in.

How I read it.

Man that was absolutely amazing. I'm referring to this of course - http://uk.news.yahoo.com/4/20090116/twl ... f21e0.html
I doubt anyone missed it.

Those pics of the plane laying there peacefully in the water with all those passengers on the wings was just totally surreal. It looked like some giant inflatable sitting there on the water.

Pretty awesome truth be told.. Noone was injured or died too, bonus !

I think I'm going to add this to my top ten list of like, coolest things ever.

ABP:

viewtopic.php?f=3&t=2990

We've already got a thread for this. Merging time.

We are proposing medals here.

Woops.. Didn't realise this was his name and thus this was a thread all about him.

Need more coffee...

No-one died? What about all the pets and animals in the cargo hold!

It's ok they don't have souls.

No fish, then?

No. Probably just your cock you're smelling.

You are cock smelling?

Cock. Cockerel. Cockington.

COCKLES!

Captain Chelsea B Sullenberger The Third

Sully to his mates.

CBSBTT to his mates, actually.

If I was calling someone excellent I think I'd get their name right.

I think he's a shit pilot, he took off and crashed. Even i could probably manage that.

Poor old goose, I say.

Apparently no-one does care so I'll just actually explicitly point out his name is "Chesley" not "Chelsea".

What a hero. To ditch successfully in the sea is hard enough but to manage it on a narrow river amongst tall buildings is incredible.

I do like the vernacular that everyone has automatically resorted to.

"What a hero! He ditched it in the drink without cracking up and back home in time for kippers. Woof!"

It seems, nowadays, that heros have to only do their fucking job to be considered a hero, though.

To say that his job is to safely land a plane with two knackered engines is like saying it's Lewis Hamilton's job to win Formula 1 races in a shopping trolley.

But it is. That's what Pilots are trained to do.

It seems that aviation experts disagree.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/7834499.stm

I like the way he says that you can't possibly train for this, not even in a simulator, and then shows a simulation of what happened.

But good on the guy.

When it shows the footage of the Ethiopian plane that tried the same trick it brings it home to you how wrong it could have gone for all those involved.

New pictures have emerged.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/americas/7835497.stm

Very gracefully done Sir, tips hat.

I know it's already been alluded to, but can someone please change the title to the guy's proper name: Chesley B Sullenberger III

Thanks

Malc

Has anyone mentioned he was almost a "sunken bugger" yet? No?

Not without nervouspete's EXPLICIT PERMISSION, sorry.

Wow, the plane came to a stop amazingly quickly.

I would have expected it to plough into the water a lot more.

I think we should change it to Chesney SulkingBurger.

My permission is hereby given and explicit, though not in capitals. I hope that's enough. MOD AWAY. (Now back to writing, eating bean chillie and drinking.)

Done.

A nice article on El Reg.