C.b. Sully Sullenberger

Sully Sullenberger)
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Chesley Burnett "Sully" Sullenberger III (born January 23, 1951) is an American commercial airline pilot, safety expert and accident investigator from Danville, California who successfully carried out the emergency water landing of US Airways Flight 1549 on the Hudson River, offshore from Manhattan, New York City on January 15, 2009. He is an international speaker on airline safety, and he has helped develop new protocols for airline safety.


Early life
Sullenberger was born to a dentist father and elementary school teacher mother, and has one sister, Mary Wilson. The street on which he grew up in Denison, Texas was named after his mother's family, the Hannas. According to Mary, Sullenberger built model planes and aircraft carriers during his childhood, and that he might have become interested in flying after hearing stories about his father's service in the United States Navy. He went to school in Denison, and was consistently evaluated as being in the 99th percentile in every academic category. At the age of 12, his IQ was deemed high enough to join Mensa International, and he also gained a pilot's license at 14. In high school he was a member of the Latin club and played first-chair flute in the marching band. His high school friends have said that Sullenberger developed a passion for flying from watching jets based out of Perrin Air Force Base. He graduated from high school near the top of his class of about 350.
Military service
He graduated from the United States Air Force Academy (B.S.) in 1973, majoring in psychology and basic sciences and receiving a number of academic awards. During his tenure at the Academy, he was selected as one of around a dozen other freshmen who were enrolled into a cadet glider program, and by the end of that year he was an instructor pilot. In his graduation year, he received the Outstanding Cadet in Airmanship Award, which is given to the top flier in each graduating class. He served as a fighter pilot for the United States Air Force, piloting McDonnell (later McDonnell Douglas) F-4 Phantom II's from 1973 to 1980. He advanced to become a flight leader and a training officer, and attained the rank of captain with experience in Europe, and the Pacific and at Nellis Air Force Base, as well as operating as Blue Force Mission Commander in Red Flag Exercises. During his time in the USAF he was a member of the official aircraft accident investigation board.
Commercial pilot
Sullenberger has been employed by US Airways or its predecessor airlines since 1980. (Pacific Southwest Airlines or PSA was acquired by US Air, later US Airways, in 1988.) In total, he has more than 40 years of flying experience, and since 2007 has run his own safety consulting business, Safety Reliability Methods Inc.,which provides "emergency management, safety strategies and performance monitoring to the aviation industry." He has also been involved in a number of accident investigations conducted by the USAF and the National Transportation Safety Board, served as an instructor, Air Line Pilots Association (ALPA) safety chairman, accident investigator, and national technical committee member. His safety work for the ALPA led to the development of a Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) Advisory Circular. He was instrumental in developing and implementing the Crew Resource Management course that is used by US Airways, and he has taught the course to hundreds of other airline members.
Working with NASA scientists, he coauthored a paper on error-inducing contexts in aviation. He has gained more than 19,000 hours of flight experience to destinations across North America, Europe and South America on Airbus A320s and similar planes since joining US Airways. His résumé states that he was an air accident investigator for a National Transport Safety Board inquiry into a major accident at Los Angeles International Airport, which "led to improved airline procedures and training for emergency evacuations of aircraft". Sullenberger has also been studying how to keep an airline crew functioning during a crisis. He holds an Airline Transport Pilot License for single and multi-engine airplanes, and a Commercial Pilot License rating in gliders, as well as an expired flight instructor certificate for airplanes (single, multi-engine, and instrument), and gliders.
Flight 1549


US Airways Flight 1549 afloat in the Hudson.

Shortly after 3:26 P.M.EST on January 15, 2009, he successfully piloted US Airways Flight 1549 to a safe ditching in the Hudson River in New York City. All passengers and crew members survived. The Mayor of New York City, Michael Bloomberg, said that Sullenberger and his crew will receive the "Key to the City". A fan club dedicated to Sullenberger was created with a website on Facebook within hours of the news. The US President, George W. Bush, called Sullenberger to thank him for saving the lives of the passengers, as did President-elect, Barack Obama.
Academic life
In addition to his bachelor of science degree from the United States Air Force Academy, Sullenberger holds a master's degree in industrial psychology from Purdue University and a master's degree in public administration from the University of Northern Colorado.
He is a visiting scholar at the University of California, Berkeley Center for Catastrophic Risk Management. He was a speaker for two panels at the High Reliability Organizations (HRO) 2007 International Conference in Deauville, France from May 29 to 31, 2007.
Personal life
He is married to Lorrie Sullenberger, and they have two daughters, Katie and Kelly. He and his family live in Danville, California.
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