Pilot Chesley 'Sully' Sullenberger Remembers the 'Miracle on the Hudson' | People NOW | People — Transcript

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1. 0:03I think for everyone on the airplane,
2. 0:05this was a second chance. There is an
3. 0:08heroic pilot who saved himself and
4. 0:11approximately 154 other passengers this
5. 0:15afternoon. We've had a miracle on 40 on
6. 0:1934th Street. I believe now we've had a
7. 0:20miracle in the Hudson.
8. 0:29January 15th, 2009 was like 10,000 other
9. 0:33days until 100 seconds after takeoff. We
10. 0:37encountered a large flock of Canada
11. 0:39geese. I saw them about two or three
12. 0:41seconds before we hit them. But at that
13. 0:43point, we're traveling over 300 ft per
14. 0:44second. They filled the windscreen like
15. 0:46a Hitchcock film. And then I could feel
16. 0:48the thumps and thuds as we struck them
17. 0:49across the whole leading edges of the
18. 0:51wings and into both engines. Uh we hear
19. 0:54a loud bang. We have no idea really what
20. 0:56it was. Afterwards, I find out that
21. 0:58people behind saw a flame from the
22. 1:00engine because I I think we hit geese is
23. 1:02what I was told. Within seconds, the
24. 1:04engines began to fail. I felt terrible
25. 1:06vibrations and heard terrible noises I'd
26. 1:09never heard before in an airliner. Did
27. 1:10you hear any explosion on your on the
28. 1:13plane? Explosion and our plane dropped
29. 1:16and it smelled and you can smell it and
30. 1:18there was a fire behind us. Both engines
31. 1:20at once, it felt as if the forward
32. 1:22momentum of the airplane nearly stopped
33. 1:23in midair. I took control of the
34. 1:25airplane. We began to make our decisions
35. 1:28about where to divert. I knew there were
36. 1:30only three options, only two runways
37. 1:33that might be reachable. It turned out
38. 1:35with reaction time they were not. And
39. 1:37that left the third option, the only
40. 1:39other place in the entire New York
41. 1:41metropolitan area, one of the most
42. 1:43densely developed and populated areas on
43. 1:44the planet that we could land an
44. 1:46airliner that was long enough, wide
45. 1:48enough, smooth enough even to attempt it
46. 1:49was the Hudson River. We said, "Oh my
47. 1:52god, this guy is falling the river." And
48. 1:55all of a sudden we at 1,000 ft 5 500 ft.
49. 1:59And we were descending if you were in a
50. 2:01hotel elevator equivalent to two floors
51. 2:04per second. Couple minutes later the
52. 2:06captain came on and said we're going to
53. 2:07dump this plane brace for impact and
54. 2:09probably brace pretty hard. And um
55. 2:11that's what we did. I made my one
56. 2:13announcement in the cabin about 90
57. 2:15seconds before landing. So I said this
58. 2:17is the captain brace for impact. So
59. 2:19almost immediately even through the
60. 2:20hardened cockpit door after I made my
61. 2:23announcement I could hear the two flight
62. 2:24attendants in front. Donna and Sheila,
63. 2:26and I'm sure Dorian in the back was
64. 2:27doing the same thing, shouting their
65. 2:29commands in unison. Brace, brace, heads
66. 2:32down, stay down. And I knew then that we
67. 2:35were literally on the same page. It
68. 2:37would appear that the pilot did a
69. 2:39masterful job of landing the plane in
70. 2:42the river and then making sure that
71. 2:45everybody got out. If I misjudged this
72. 2:48height, even by a fraction of a second,
73. 2:50if I did it too soon, we'd get too slow
74. 2:52and and drop in. If I did it too late,
75. 2:55we would hit nose first going down too
76. 2:57far. So in the last four seconds of the
77. 2:59flight, starting at about 100 feet above
78. 3:01the river, I began to pull the side
79. 3:04stick back to raise the nose. Pull it
80. 3:05back, further back, further back until
81. 3:07it was fully aft and hold it full aft to
82. 3:11keep the nose up as much as I could as
83. 3:13we entered the water. And we hit hard.
84. 3:15It was a hard landing. We were hitting
85. 3:16that Hudson River with full impact and
86. 3:19it went boom. And then we stopped. Just
87. 3:22as we stopped in the water, right before
88. 3:25I unstrapped and opened the cockpit door
89. 3:27to shout the word evacuate into the
90. 3:29cabin, our first officer, Jeff, and I
91. 3:31turned to each other in the cockpit at
92. 3:32the same time in the same word said,
93. 3:34"Well, that wasn't as bad as I thought."
94. 3:36The New York Waterway Ferry operators
95. 3:39saw us from their New Jersey terminal.
96. 3:41They radioed their vessels to head
97. 3:43toward us without awaiting any official
98. 3:45notification. And the first New York
99. 3:47waterway ferry was alongside us less
100. 3:49than four minutes after we stopped in
101. 3:50the river. He walked the plane twice
102. 3:53after everybody else was off and tried
103. 3:55to verify that there was nobody else on
104. 3:57board and assures us there were not. I
105. 3:59knew that there were 155 people total
106. 4:02passengers and crew I I had to account
107. 4:04for. So my just by landing my job was by
108. 4:06no means over. I was responsible for
109. 4:08everyone until everyone was safe and
110. 4:09accounted for. If you want to talk to a
111. 4:11hero, get a hold of him because that's
112. 4:13the hero in this whole deal. You know
113. 4:14what? I we we have a second chance in
114. 4:17life. This pilot and and and if this guy
115. 4:22doesn't get the recognition he needs,
116. 4:23unbelievable. Is the reason my daughter,
117. 4:26my 2 and 1/2-year-old, has a dad and my
118. 4:29wife still has a husband. As soon as we
119. 4:31landed, I knew this was going to be a
120. 4:33life-changing event. This is one of
121. 4:35those events that divides one's life
122. 4:38into before and after.
123. 4:42And this is where I cried.
124. 4:47I knew when I married Sully,
125. 4:50the one thing for sure was that he was
126. 4:52the most honorable man I knew. My family
127. 4:56knows that they could have lost me that
128. 4:58day. And that's true for all the
129. 5:00families involved. I knew what the
130. 5:02outcome would be that day because I knew
131. 5:05my husband. When we weren't lost, when
132. 5:09all of us were saved, then of course it
133. 5:12was a chance to to try to do things
134. 5:14differently.
135. 5:19A source tells people it was an amicable
136. 5:20split. Many on social media are still
137. 5:22having trouble coping. The late show
138. 5:25tweeted this gift of James Cordon crying
139. 5:27and said, "We're going to need a
140. 5:28minute." # hitplit. I like that hashtag.
141. 5:30It's