Back in 2009 I remember briefly seeing through some breaking news on television that a plane had just landed on the Hudson River. But that’s about all I remember, as back then I was so wrapped up in some unhealthy behaviors that I usually never paid much attention to anything other than myself. Zoom forward seven years later to the release of director Clint Eastwood’s story about this watery plane crash and suddenly I found myself wanting to see it, especially knowing who was directing and that one of my favorite actors, Tom Hanks, was playing the lead character “Sully”.
The movie is based off of the actions of Chesley ‘Sully’ Sullenberger who was the pilot of doomed US Airways flight 1549 that took off from LaGuardia Airport in New York on January 15th, 2009. Shortly after its takeoff, the plane unexpectedly ran into a heavy onslaught of birds that took out both of its engines. To handle the situation, Sully made the decision to make an emergency landing on the Hudson River when he assessed the plane would not make it safely back to the originating airport or to any other local airport either. And in the end, that decision proved to be the best he could have made, as every passenger, 155 in total, ended up surviving.
While I can say I did know that much about this plane crash, I wondered as I headed to the theater how there was going to be enough material to make a 2-hour film about the event. What I didn’t know until after I watched it is that for the first few days after the crash, Sully and his co-pilot Jeff Skiles (Aaron Eckhart) were interrogated over and over again by the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) who claimed there was ample ability for them to have gotten the plane and all its passengers safely back to one of two airports.
Why this movie spiritually inspired me enough to write this article about it is solely due to the selflessness I saw in Sully both during and after the crash. As the plane lay on top of the chilly Hudson on a –5 degree wind chill based day, his only concern was in making sure every passenger was rescued. Not only that, he was actually the final person to leave the plane as well. That’s in stark contrast to some of the disasters that have happened over time such as the Costa Concordia luxury liner that capsized, as its captain completely abandoned the ship while the majority of the passengers and crew were still onboard. But even more inspiring was how Sully handled the trial he was put through afterward. As during it, he never once lost his composure nor did he ever accept the NTSB’s insistence that he could have gotten the plane back to an airport safely.
When I thought about all this after I left the film, I pondered how most of us would have handled the same situation if we had been the chief pilot. Would we have panicked and caused a fatal crash after that bird strike? Would we have worried more about ourselves if we had gotten the plane successfully on the river? And would we have lost our composure during the trial and maybe even conceded that we could have done it differently?
While I don’t have those answers, I can say that I do believe God blessed US Airways Flight 1549 that day by putting Sully in the pilot’s seat, as I think anyone else probably would have caused a fatal crash and the death of all of its passengers. So thank God for people like Chesley Sullenberger and thank God for the movie “Sully” that was accurately based on his well-deserved heroism.
Peace, love, light, and joy,
Andrew Arthur Dawson