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>> The co-pilot Jeff Skiles and

Captain Sully Sullenberger, the

cockpit crew of US Airways 1549

safely landed the airbus

jetliner on the Hudson River in

New York, saving more than 150

lives.

While this event and its safe

conclusion that vaulted Jeff and

Sully into the media spotlight,

Jeff has been involved with

aviation nearly his entire life.

Jeff's parents were both pilots

and were participants in the

annual EAA fly-in convention the

1960s, which has been held back

at that time in Rockford,

Illinois.

That built his own flying

enthusiasm as he built his own

flying career and eventually

joined US Airways in 1986.

He has now logged more than

20,000 hours flying in

everything from vintage

airplanes to some of the world's

most sophisticated jetliners.

Jeff joined EAA in 2012 and

serves as the vice president of

communities and member programs.

In that role, he leads several

of the organizations key

programs, including Young

Eagles, which has introduced

more than 1.8 million youth to

flying since 1992.

He also is part of EAA's network

of more than 900 local chapters

and supports in aviation in EAA

and local communities.

Jeff also heads up the

leadership team here at EAA

AirVenture Museum.

Since its opening in 1983, the

museum has welcomed more than

2.5 million visitors.

Jeff has owned a number of

aircraft, both vintage and

contemporary, which he enjoys to

fly to EAA events and other

fly-ins throughout the Midwest.

He is a regular contributor to

the EAA Sport Aviation magazine

and is involved in pilot and

aviation safety issues for both

aviation civilian and aviation

airliners.

So, please welcome Jeff Skiles.

[APPLAUSE]

>> Thank you.

Thank you.

I must say, when we scheduled

this about four months ago, I

had no idea the level of free

publicity that I was going to

get to promote this

this evening.

Do you know that it was on CNN,

CBS, ABC?

Of course, they might have been

talking about the event

behind me.

[LAUGHTER]

So I got quite a story to tell

you this evening.

And I'm going to do that tonight

by putting you on the jump seat.

And you're probably asking

yourself, what's a jump seat?

Well, airline pilots in the

crowd will know that between the

captain and the first officer in

every cockpit there's a little

seat that folds out from the

wall.

And it's a very special place.

And only very special people get

to sit there.

You have to be on a database

with the Department of Homeland

Security to be allowed access to

any cockpit in this country.

But tonight I'm going to put you

on that jump seat, and I'm going

to be doing that by taking you

along with me and telling you my

story.

Now, as you sit there, to your

left you're looking at

Captain Chesley Burnett

Sullenberger III.

[LAUGHTER]

That's quite a name.

In the course of our trip,

before the incident, we're up at

altitude flying out to

San Francisco and I'm looking at

my trip sheet, which is this

little piece of paper we carry

that says where we're going,

when we have to be there, when

we have to get up, and who the

crew members are, and I'm

looking at this name that takes

the entire space that's allowed

for a name on this trip sheet.

And I said, hey, Sully, with a

name like that, it must put a

lot of pressure on a man to

produce a Chesley Burnett

Sullenberger IV.

[LAUGHTER]

And he said, Jeff, that is

exactly why I adopted two girls.

[LAUGHTER]

Sully grew up in Denton, Texas.

Kind of the northwest side of

Dallas.

He learned to fly as a teenager

and got a private pilot license

before he graduated high school.

He went to the Air Force

Academy, and when he graduated

from there he went to fighter

pilot school and flew F-4

Phantom fighters just after the

end of the Vietnam War.

Sully got out of his shift

there, or his hitch, and he

joined Pacific Southwest

Airlines, which is one of the

airlines that makes up the

current day US Airways.

Now, for those of you who don't

know, which is probably most of

the crowd, he's very much as he

appears on TV.

He is the professional's

professional.

Even before our accident, I was

noticing how precise he was

about everything that he did in

the cockpit.

He tries to be the best, and he

knows that that's going to take

work not necessarily talent.

And he puts in the work to make

it happen.

So Sully is really, really quite

an individual.

To your right, you're looking at

me, Jeff Skiles.

I also learned how to fly as a

teenager right here in Madison,

Wisconsin.

Got my license when I was

17 years old.

My first job was pumping gas at

the airport.

Became a flight instructor while

I was going to college.

Worked at a couple smaller

airlines, but I was hired

at US Airways in 1986.

And I've been both a captain and

a first officer at US Airways at

different times, and at the

time, I was working as a first

officer so I could get the best

of schedules because I was very

senior in that position.

Now, I find that people like to

tell me where they were when

they first heard the news or

saw those first pictures.

Well, I don't know where you

were...

[LAUGHTER]

But I'm going to tell you where

I was.

[LAUGHTER]

We'd actually started that day

in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania,

on a layover.

We flew down to Charlotte, and

we switched airplanes and we're

going to go on up to LaGuardia.

Now, LaGuardia had low clouds

and snow that day, and if you

know anything about the east

coast, that means air traffic

control delay.

So we're at the end of the

runway in what we call the

holding pad with our engines

shut down, down at the end of

1-8 left in Charlotte.

And I'm asking Sully what there

is to do on the west coast

because this is my very first

trip in the airbus.

I've just gotten out of training

the week before.

And the airplanes that I had

flown, I'd come from a 737 in

the Philadelphia base, and the

airplanes I'd flown had not

flown west of Kansas City in

probably my last 20 years of my

career.

So layovers like San Diego,

San Francisco, Los Angeles,

these are exotic layover

destinations to me.

[LAUGHTER]

Ironically, he starts telling me

about the Seattle layover.

And he says there's a great

opportunity there.

He says there's a place called

Kenmore Air, and you can walk

there from our layover hotel and

they'll let you jump seat with

them.

They fly these little float

planes out to the

San Juan Islands and up to

British Columbia.

I'm thinking this is pretty

cool.

I get out my trip sheet.

I get out my pen.

I'm writing down who you call,

how you set this up because

I have never landed on water

before.

[LAUGHTER]

Did finally make it out there

about a year ago.

[LAUGHTER]

But I kind of already had that

box checked.

[LAUGHTER]

Now, up in LaGuardia,

where you're going to join us on

the jump seat, a cold front has

moved through and it's pushed

the clouds and the snow off to

the east.

It's clearing but it's really

cold.

I remember walking around the

airplane, which we do every time

we land, we do a walk-around and

check out the exterior of the

airplane, and I remember that

cold just biting through my

leather jacket.

We got back, we boarded the

passengers, and every seat was

filled.

150 passengers joined us today

on this flight.

In the cockpit, you're seeing

Sully and I conducting our

pre-start checklist.

We actually go through what we

call flows where we go through

the cockpit in a very ordered

manner.

We check every switch, load

every computer, check every

system, and then, over on top of

that, we do a checklist in

between us to make sure we've

accomplished the most important

items.

We close the door, push back,

and start up our engines.

On the taxi out, I'm setting the

controls for takeoff, imputing

our weights into the computers

to get the proper takeoff

speeds, and talking on the radio

to the ground controller.

Sully's taxiing the airplane.

We get out to the end of

Runway 4 in LaGuardia.

And we stop short and I give my

takeoff briefing because this

just happens to be my leg.

As airline crews go through the

day, we swap legs.

One leg the captain flies, one

leg the first officer flies, and

we just kind of swap legs going

through the day.

It just happened to be my leg

to fly.

Now, this is not only just my

first trip on an airbus in

regular scheduled transport,

it's also my first trip

with Sully.

At the time, I'd worked there

for 24 years, he'd worked there

for 30, I don't every recall

even seeing Sully before.

A lot of people think that we're

joined at the hip as crew

members, but we're not at all.

There's 5,000 pilots at

US Airways alone, which is a

smaller carrier.

We can't depend on knowing the

person we're going to work with.

We have to sit down next to

somebody and perform as a crew

from the very first takeoff.

We do that by following our

procedures and our training very

strictly.

I didn't really know Sully but I

knew exactly what he was going

to do in any situation, and he

knew the same of me.

Our air traffic controller

clears us for takeoff.

Sully comes out, taxis it out,

lines it up with the center line

stripes, sets the parking break,

and he says, your aircraft.

And I said, my aircraft, which

is how we verbalize transferring

control of the airplane to make

sure that somebody is flying it

at all times.

[LAUGHTER]

You laugh, but that actually

is a result of accidents

that have happened because both

pilots were trying to solve

an emergency and nobody was

actually paying heed to what

the aircraft was doing.

I reach over and I grab these

large thrust levers and push

them up into the takeoff

and go-around D-10.

The airbus is a fly-by-wire

airplane, which means that

nothing in the cockpit is

actually attached to anything.

These bit throttles that I just

pushed forward operate these

tiny little microswitches below

the panel.

The control stick with which we

fly it just sends electrical

impulses to a computer that then

pours hydraulic fluid out onto

servos to operate the control

surfaces on the wings and on the

tail.

We start accelerating down the

runway.

Sully makes our standard call

outs of 80, V1, rotate.

I pull back on the side stick.

We leave the runway.

He says positive rate,

and I say gear up.

At 400 feet, we rolled to a

heading of north, which was our

assigned departure heading, and

we start to accelerate and

clean up the airplane.

At 3,000 feet in the air, which

isn't very high at all, I'm

pitching the nose over to

accelerate even further to our

air speed.

We actually have, like you have

a highway miles per hour speed,

we actually have an air speed in

the air.

It's 250 knots

below 10,000 feet.

You can't go faster than that.

But I'm only about 204 knots,

and I'm pitching it forward to

accelerate, and I remember

something caught my eye.

And I look slightly above us

and to the right

and I see a line of birds

too close to maneuver around.

In fact, traveling at that

speed, by the time you see a

bird, it's really too late to do

anything about it.

And then I hear Sully next to me

say, birds.

And that fast we were on top of

them.

Their bodies were impacting on

the wings, on the fuselage, and

at least two of them went

through the core of each engine.

And when I say the core, when

you're looking at a jet engine

from the terminal, you're

actually seeing the big fan

section.

There's two big spools of fan

blades, there are a bunch of

little fan blades that come out

around.

But if you were right up next to

the engine and looking into it,

you'd see a much smaller turbine

and compressor section.

And there's 17 spools of these

little blades behind there.

You can actually take a bird

through the fan section and have

maybe a little vibration, maybe

nothing at all, and the engine

produces power.

But we took two of these big

geese right through the turbine

compressor section of both

engines.

And they just destroyed both

engines.

I remember that we heard the

birds impact the airplane, and I

remember thinking we have to

assess what the damage was.

And then after about a second

both engines immediately

cut power.

They make a high whining sound

at climb power, and they just

reduced to nothing.

I remember the shock of it felt

like when you have a bad cold

and your head is kind of fuzzy

because it feels like your head

is going to explode.

We have our nose up in the air,

we're at our minimum air speed

for this particular clean wing

situation with our flaps up, and

we've just wiped all the power

off the airplane.

You could just feel the airplane

sag in the air.

The air speed tape is unwinding.

I'm pushing the nose forward to

try to keep the airplane flying,

and Sully decides to take over

the aircraft, actually flying

the aircraft at this point,

which is his prerogative

as the captain, and he says,

my aircraft.

And I said, hey...

[LAUGHTER]

Your aircraft.

Don't let me stop you.

[LAUGHTER]

But this is actually

a signal.

We are very highly trained, and

we can switch duties with even

just a few words.

Normally when we fly an airplane

as airline pilots, we're

constantly crosschecking each

other.

There's not any important

modification that's made to our

navigation systems, to changing

altitude, to power settings

without both pilots being

involved and both pilots

agreeing on it happening.

But when we have emergency

situations, we know we have to

split duties.

One person flies the airplane;

the other person handles the

emergency.

When Sully said, my aircraft,

and I said, your aircraft,

my role immediately changed

to that of a troubleshooter.

And I reached for what we call

our quick reference handbook,

which is a 177-page...

[LAUGHTER]

Book of emergency procedures

and data.

And I'm looking for the dual

engine failure checklist.

[LAUGHTER]

When I find it,

it's three pages long.

It's designed to be done at

30,000 feet in the air, not at

3,000 feet in three minutes

time.

The scenario it imagines is a

fuel starvation or ingesting

volcanic ash which destroys your

engines, not ingesting two geese

per engine that simply destroy

them.

But still, I start into the

checklist making sure we have

electrics and hydraulic power so

that we can actually fly the

airplane and trying to restart

the engine.

Now, back in the cabin, two of

our flight attendants are

sitting right behind the door of

the cockpit facing backwards on

a jump seat.

They don't even have a window

where they sit, and they know

that something has gone horribly

wrong with the airplane.

They obviously have long

experience in aviation.

In fact, our three flight

attendants averaged 30 years of

experience a piece.

But they knew something horrible

was going wrong but they had

no idea what it was.

We didn't have the time to talk

to them.

In the cabin, our passengers

have heard and in some cases

seen the birds impacting the

engines.

There's flames shooting about

50 feet out the back of the left

engine, but most of them thought

we had an engine fire on that

side which is scary enough but

certainly we'll be returning to

land on the engine on the right.

The right side engine was even

more heavily damaged.

The right side engine, the first

spool of the compressor section

shattered, and all that metal

went back and just threw the

engine and just destroyed it.

The left engine was actually

running at kind of an idle

power.

But the birds had managed to

knock the fuel nozzles out of

the burner cans, and the gas was

igniting in the slip stream

behind the engine like a torch

out the back.

But the important thing for us

is it was running an alternator

and a hydraulic pump because

both of those things we need to

fly.

Up in the cockpit Sully's

talking to the air traffic

controller about going back to

LaGuardia.

Now, I can't see it because it's

over on his side of the

airplanes and is actually behind

his shoulder at this point.

I can't make any judgment as to

whether we can actually make it

back to LaGuardia or not.

Our only options for landing are

to go back to the airport we

left from, a little airport

called Teterboro off on our

right, or the Hudson River which

is right ahead of us.

Otherwise, all we're looking at

are highways, skyscrapers,

houses.

There's absolutely no place that

you could set this airplane

down.

It's New York City, one of the

most congested places on Earth.

At one point, our air traffic

controller, Patrick Harten,

points out Teterboro, and I

remember pausing in what I was

doing to look out and see if I

could spot it.

I saw it on the horizon, and

then I saw that it started to

rise in the windshield, which

any pilot knows means you can't

make it.

Really our only option was to

land the airplane

in the Hudson River.

Now, what I remember most about

that descent was all the noise

in the cockpit.

We have all manner of oral

alerts that warn us of various

things.

And a number of them are going

off simultaneously.

We went too close to a

helicopter that was coming up

the VFR Corridor

up the Hudson River, and we're

getting a "traffic, traffic"

call out over our speakers.

Because we had no power on and

we're down low to the ground,

we're getting an audible

call out of "too low gear,"

"too low flap."

Our alert bell is sounding

continuously with this

ding-ding-ding-ding-ding sound

as these cascading failures are

overwhelming the monitoring

systems in the airplane.

Through all this noise, Sully

had the presence of mind to

reach back and grab the public

address telephone, which sits

between us at the back of the

console and looks just like an

old style telephone receiver.

And he presses the button on the

public address system and says,

"This is the captain,

brace for impact."

Now, that's actually a sign.

It tells the passengers

obviously things aren't going

well.

[LAUGHTER]

But it's a signal to the flight

attendants to start into their

emergency preparedness training,

that they have trained for.

They start chanting,

"Brace, brace, heads down,

stay down, brace, brace,

heads down, stay down,"

over and over and over again

to get the passengers

into the proper position

for a crash landing.

Now with this, the passengers

know that they're not going to

be returning to an airport to

land.

And they handled it in a number

of ways.

Some of them wrote notes to

leave behind, to leave in their

shirt pockets.

A large number of them texted

loved ones on the phones that

were supposed to be shut down...

[LAUGHTER]

When they left the gate.

One passenger showed me his text

at the year anniversary

of the event.

It was still on his phone.

It said,

"The plane's going down.

I'll always love you,

say goodbye to the kids."

One passenger, who I just saw

yesterday actually,

had had two days of bad luck.

Just the day before,

his wife had been diagnosed

with breast cancer.

And he's a spiritual man so of

course he made a pact with God.

And he said, God, if you have to

take someone, please take me.

So here it is, less than 24

hours later, and he's plummeting

to the Earth in this engineless

aircraft, he doesn't know what

the next few moments of his life

are going to hold, and he told

me all he could think about was,

God, I know we made this pact

and all...

[LAUGHTER]

But did it really have to be

so soon?

[LAUGHTER]

Up in the cockpit,

we're coming down through about

a thousand feet in the air.

We're not going to be able to

get the engines started.

Even if they lit off, they

wouldn't spool up in time for us

to avert landing in the river.

I started calling out air speeds

and altitudes to Sully to give

him situational awareness.

He has to land with the wings

perfectly level to keep from

dragging a wing tip and possibly

cartwheeling the airplane.

But one of the very fortunate

things that day,

and I'll tell people

we had one moment of bad luck

and a thousand moments

of good luck,

but one of the very

fortunate things was that the

river ahead of us was clear.

For anybody who's ever been in

New York, it's a very heavily

trafficked waterway.

And most New Yorkers are just

surprised we found any place to

set down an airplane in that

river.

But it was clear.

And there wasn't any wind that

day so there were no swells.

They can actually get swells,

three-foot swells,

in the Hudson River.

I remember this odd feeling

as we came down close, as the

skyscrapers and buildings were

rising off of both our left

on Manhattan

and off the right in New Jersey.

When you survive an airline

accident, one thing it gives you

the opportunity to do is listen

to your own crash on the cockpit

voice recorder, which is quite

an emotional experience,

let me tell ya.

The only people who ever get to

hear the cockpit voice recorder

are the five people that are

on the National Transportation

Safety Board Cockpit

Voice Recorder Committee

who listen to it and,

in our case, survivors, because

the National Transportation

Safety Board, who investigates

accidents in this country,

didn't understand how we

communicated, because there

are points at which we each took

action and we communicated,

but we didn't say anything.

And they didn't understand how

that happened, and they wanted

us to listen to the tape

and give them some answers.

And I could tell you,

I don't have any answers.

Neither does Sully.

All I know is that I was doing

my task, but I was completely

aware of everything

that was going on around me.

I knew what Sully was

thinking every step of the way,

and he knew the same of me.

Other than that,

I have no explanation.

We really didn't speak

as we were coming down to land

on the Hudson River.

There was no verbal

communication.

But as we listened to that

cockpit voice recorder,

we both heard something

that neither of us remembered

at all from the day.

Right before we touched down

in the water, Sully asked me,

"You got any other ideas?"

[LAUGHTER]

I said, "Actually, no."

[LAUGHTER]

We hit hard on the tail, and

then the water just seemed to

flow over the windshield.

It seemed like it was burying

the nose of the airplane

into the river.

But then it popped up, and it

was just bobbing in the waves.

I turned to Sully and I said,

"Well, that wasn't so bad."

[LAUGHTER]

But we've lost all our

electrical power.

And the flight attendants

are waiting for two words

from Sully.

They're waiting for him to say,

"Evacuate, evacuate,"

and our public address system

doesn't work.

So Sully went back to the cabin

to give that command

so that the flight attendants

could independently start their

evacuation procedure.

I stayed up in the cockpit,

because we actually have

a procedure for this, an

emergency evacuation checklist.

The first item on it is

"parking break set."

[LAUGHTER]

The second item is

"engines one and two off."

Well..

[LAUGHTER]

The left one isn't even attached

to the airplane anymore.

It's going to the bottom

of the river.

Certainly the right one

is shut down.

So I kind of went through this.

None of these tasks were really

applicable to the situation.

And probably about 45 seconds

went by, and I went back,

and I'm standing in that

little hallway between

the cockpit and the cabin

and we had the rafts open.

About the first 10 rows or so

of the airplane are already

out on the rafts.

They're empty of passengers.

And I'm stopped short because

running up towards me up the

aisle is a guy who looks like

he's about 25 years old,

and he's wearing

nothing but boxer shorts

and a pair of sweat socks.

[LAUGHTER]

Keep in mind, it's 20 degrees.

It's January.

I'm pretty sure he didn't get on

the airplane that way.

[LAUGHTER]

I found out later that he

planned to swim to shore.

So he took off most of his

clothes back there in the cabin

somewhere.

But he's already realized

what a bad idea this is

because he's freezing.

[LAUGHTER]

So he stops short before me

and he's hugging himself,

and he's shivering and he says,

"What do I do?"

And I said, go get in the raft.

[LAUGHTER]

I told the next three people,

could you go sit on that guy

to keep him warm?

[LAUGHTER]

Now, the airplane had hit

pretty hard on the tail and

actually did a lot of damage

in the back.

It pushed the rear baggage hold

up into the rear galley and

compromised the structure

back there, which is why it was

sitting so tail-low and we

couldn't use the rafts that were

in the rear of the airplane.

So the passengers had no choice

but to go out onto the wings.

It was the only place open

to them to get away from the

airplane.

Our flight attendant,

Doreen Welsh, was sitting

in her jump seat

in the back of the airplane

when some of the structure from

that baggage hold, specifically

an I-beam, came shooting through

the floor and went right into

her calf.

Her leg is spurting blood, but

she doesn't realize it yet.

She's in shock.

The people ran to the back of

the airplane where some of them

reported that the water was up

to their necks.

But she somehow got them

headed back forward

over the emergency exit hatches

over the wings.

The people got off the airplane

relatively fast.

They were enthusiastic about...

[LAUGHTER]

Getting off that airplane.

And after they were off, Sully

and I went back to about

mid-cabin because the people on

the wings had left without

taking floatation devices.

The aircraft had life vests.

In fact, life vests hang in

pouches below the seats of the

airplanes, but you would have to

read the boarding card

pretty closely to see that.

And of course the seat cushions

are also floatation devices.

So we were getting floatation

devices, seat cushions and

life vests, and handing them out

to the people on the wings.

Now, where we were, the water

was about up to our knees,

and it was just freezing cold.

It was literally ice water.

And your bones just ached

being in that water.

Both Sully and I started walking

on the seats and on the armrests

just to keep our legs out of the

water, but you still had to

reach down underneath the seats

with your hands

to get those life vests.

We did that and we pretty much

cleared out the area around the

center of the airplane.

It was settling down in the

water while I was in there.

You could tell that.

But I was never actually

concerned at all for my own

safety, because I thought if

it actually started to sink

I could probably run for it and

get out one of those emergency

exit hatches.

I was never more than about

20 feet away from it.

So I wasn't concerned at all.

But after a while, we cleared

out the area of floatation

devices and life vests and Sully

says, "Let's get out of here."

So we went back forward and went

out the normal boarding door,

the way you would get on the

airplane.

Now, I remember this odd

feeling, because in the cabin

it was calm.

It was just Sully and I in there

and we were working and we

really didn't know what was

going on outside the airplane.

Because of where we happened

to come to rest, which was right

where the ferry boats crossed

from Manhattan to New Jersey,

the boats were on shore and all

they had to do was castoff their

lines and come out and they were

already there.

The airplane

was surrounded by boats.

And there was a helicopter

overhead that was dropping a

police frogman into the water

to help the passengers who had

slipped off the wings into the

water, help them back onto the

wings.

I remember the helicopter was

just kicking up spray, and it

was just drenching everybody.

I became obsessed with the fact

that this raft is tethered to

the plane.

If the plane's going to sink,

it's going to take our raft

with it.

So there's actually a safety

knife in this raft specifically

for this, to cut this tether,

but we had about 70 people on

a raft that was designed for 40.

And there was no way I was going

to be able to find this knife.

We were packed into this raft

like sardines.

Sully called up to one of the

boats overhead and asked

if anybody had a knife.

And this guy throws down a knife

and Sully hands it to me.

I press the clasp,

it was a clasp knife, and

the blade comes shooting out.

It's like a New Jersey

switchblade.

[LAUGHTER]

I cut the rope, and then

I'm holding the knife

in an inflatable raft.

[LAUGHTER]

The significance hasn't escaped

me, but of course it's a nice

knife, you want to give the guy

his knife back, right?

Well, after a while I thought

this is just too dangerous

and I threw it in the river.

We floated around the nose of

the aircraft and one of the

New York waterway ferries

comes up next to us.

The Athena was the boat.

And the captain reverses

his engines and comes to a stop

right next to our raft.

And of course we're sitting down

on the water, and the deck

on this boat is up about six,

seven feet in the air.

Just another obstacle.

How are we going to get up

there?

Well, a crewman runs out from

the cabin and he throws a

boarding net over the side.

And I remember looking at this

boarding net and thinking,

what is it, D-Day?

[LAUGHTER]

We're supposed to climb up

this?

My hands are frozen.

I can't grip anything.

And then he throws a rope over

the side at me, and I'm

supposed to keep hold the raft

next to the boat.

I remember I held it in my elbow

because I couldn't grip my

hands.

They were just frozen.

I held it in my elbow and I'm

just leaning up against the side

of the boat, sitting on the edge

of the raft while the passengers

started to go up the boarding

net with crew members

helping them onto the deck.

It seemed like I must have,

I don't know, lost track of time

or blacked out there, because it

seemed like the passengers had

just started going up and then

the next moment that I recall

I hear Sully behind me say,

"Jeff, we better get out of here

while we still can."

I looked behind me,

and the raft was empty

except for Sully and I.

So we clamored up onto the boat

as best we could, and

I ended up on my hands and knees

on the deck.

I got up, walked into the heated

cabin area, and there was

a passenger there

right in front of the door.

He had one of those flip phones,

and he just called somebody

and he flipped it shut.

He looks at it,

and then he offers it to me.

And I thought, well,

maybe I should call somebody.

[LAUGHTER]

But who should I call?

I'll call my wife.

[LAUGHTER]

Guys, learn from me,

that's a bad move.

[LAUGHTER]

So I dial the number,

a do it with my knuckle.

It takes me about three tries

and I get it right.

I've got the phone up to my ear,

I'm staring out the window,

the plane is still floating by

at this point.

She answers and I said,

"I don't think I'm going to be

home tonight."

[LAUGHTER]

And she says, "Why?"

And I said, "Well,

we took off in LaGuardia.

We hit birds.

We flamed out both engines.

We had to ditch the airplane

in the Hudson, and we think

we got everybody out okay,

I gotta go."

[LAUGHTER]

And I hung up.

[LAUGHTER]

So then Sully calls his house

but he's got caller ID.

And his wife's talking to a

friend of hers on the phone and

she says, "Oh," when it beeps,

she says, "Oh, it's just Sully."

[LAUGHTER]

"He'll call back later

when it's important."

[LAUGHTER]

Then he calls our dispatcher.

We have dispatchers in the

airline business, to tell them

where we left their airplane.

[LAUGHTER]

And he answers and he says,

"I don't have time to talk

to you right now; we have an

airplane down in the Hudson."

[LAUGHTER]

Now all this actually

only took place maybe just a

couple hundred yards from shore

on the Manhattan side.

And in fact, the ferry terminal

was only a couple blocks south

of the actual site of where we

came to rest.

So it really didn't take us long

before we were at the ferry dock

and filing off the boat.

The entire flight

took five and a half minutes,

two minutes

until we hit the geese,

three and a half minutes until

we landed in the Hudson River.

Just to tell you the story has

taken me five times that long.

>> Cactus 1549,

700 climbing 5,000.

>> Cactus 1549,

contact and maintain 1-5000.

>> Maintain 1-5000,

Cactus 1549.

>> Cactus 1549,

turn left heading 2-7-0.

>> Ah, this, uh, Cactus 1549.

Hit birds, we lost thrust

in both engines.

We're turning back towards

LaGuardia.

>> Okay, yeah, you need to

return to LaGuardia.

Turn left heading of 2-2-0.

>> 2-2-0.

>> Tower, stop your departures.

We got an emergency returning.

>> Who is it?

>> It's 1529,

he ah, bird strike.

He lost all engines.

He lost the thrust

in the engines.

He is returning immediately.

>> Cactus 1529, which engines?

>> He lost thrust in both

engines, he said.

>> Got it.

>> Cactus 1529, if we can get it

to you, do you want to try

to land runway 1-3?

>> We're unable.

We may end up in the Hudson.

>> All right cactus 1549.

It's going to be a left.

Traffic to runway 3-1.

>> Unable.

>> Okay, what do you need

to land?

Do you want to try

to go to Teterboro?

>> Yes.

>> Teterboro, uh, empire

actually, LaGuardia departure

got an emergency inbound.

>> Okay, go ahead.

>> Cactus 1529, over the

George Washington Bridge, wants

to go your airport right now.

>> He wants to go to our airport

check.

Does he need assistance?

>> Yes, he, it was a bird

strike.

Can I get him in for runway one?

>> Runway one, that's good.

>> Cactus 1529, turn right

2-8-0, you can land runway one

at Teterboro.

>> We can't do it.

>> Okay, which runway would you

like at Teterboro?

>> We're gonna be in the Hudson.

>> I'm sorry, say again,

Cactus.

Cactus 1549, radar contact

is lost.

You also got Newark airport

off your two o'clock

in about seven miles.

Eagle flight 4718, turn left

heading 2-1-0.

>> 2-1-0, 4718.

I don't know, I think he said

he was going in the Hudson.

>> Cactus 1529, you still on?

>> We weren't at the ferry

dock long before the politicians

arrived.

[LAUGHTER]

Mayor Bloomberg and

Governor Paterson came down to

hold a press conference on site.

And of course Sully and I are

thinking we're the only the ones

that really knew what happened,

how can anybody possible hold

a press conference about such

a circumstance?

But this is where Governor

Paterson coined the phrase

"the miracle on the Hudson."

But the question is,

was it really a miracle?

We're going to come back to that

in a minute.

But I want to tell you a little

bit more about what that evening

entailed for us.

At the ferry dock, most of the

passengers were at the same

location that we were

on 39th Street.

And initially they had thought

that this was a terrorist

incident.

So the law enforcement

had mobilized as if it was

a terrorist incident.

There were more police officers

than there were passengers

and crew.

There were Manhattan cops,

Port Authority cops, DEA, FBI.

Every acronym you could imagine

was there, and nobody knew what

to do because an airplane with

155 people on it just doesn't

drop out of the sky every day.

Most of the passengers were

walking around with Red Cross

blankets over their shoulders

and were wondering

what the next step was.

Eight of them actually took that

in their own hands.

They walked right through the

ferry terminal, went out to the

curb, hailed a cab, went out to

LaGuardia, and they were on the

next flight to Charlotte.

[LAUGHTER]

Now, we were just milling around

for about, I don't know,

an hour and a half or two hours

there, and I'm thinking

something's got to give here,

something's got to break.

Sully's telling the police

either arrest us or let us go.

And then the door opens,

and in walks another US Airways

pilot, because he's wearing

his uniform.

I didn't know him, but he walks

over to us.

It turns out it was one our

pilot reps, we happened to have

a LaGuardia base at the time,

and he put on his uniform and he

lived in Manhattan and came

down, found us, and I'm thinking

thank God there's somebody here

who will know what to do.

And he introduces himself, and

then he moves off no more than

three feet, gets out his cell

phone, dials somebody

and he says, "I got 'em.

I got 'em. What do I do?"

[LAUGHTER]

What he was doing,

was he was calling our Accident

Investigation chairman.

One of the things we have as

airline pilots is we have

a large support network.

We have an accident

investigation committee that

actually trains with the

National Transportation Safety

Board as accident investigators.

They work alongside them

in an air crash.

We have people that are trained

in psychological issues to help

us or to help our families,

God forbid, get past

some of the emotional crisis

of an air crash.

We have media people to help

deal with the media.

And all of these people are

just waiting for that call.

They don't want to ever hear

that call, but when they do,

they drop everything they have.

They get off trips.

They go to wherever that

location was.

Our accident was at 3:30 in the

afternoon on Thursday,

January 15th.

By that evening, 40 to 45

of my fellow pilots had already

gotten to New York City

just to assume their roles

and to support Sully and I.

Our accident investigation

chairman said take them to a

hospital.

And the guy said, well, they're

not hurt, because we weren't.

We were wet, we were cold,

but we were unhurt.

They'd taken Doreen, our flight

attendant that was injured, off

to the hospital much earlier.

And he said, it doesn't matter,

take them to a hospital.

It's a standard procedure.

When you're in the public eye,

you don't have a door that you

can close and get behind.

A hospital emergency room

is a place of sanctuary.

Not anybody can go in there.

It's very restricted who is

allowed access to a hospital

emergency room.

So if you don't have a house

or something of even better

shelter, you go to an emergency

room.

So we went to the emergency room

in a large ambulance.

And when you go there, they've

got to take your blood pressure,

check your pulse, your vitals,

all that, and then a doctor

comes in and asks if there's

anything wrong with me.

And I said, "No."

"Okay, then I'm going to

release you," she says.

I said, "Okay."

And of course, to release you,

they've got to check your

blood pressure, take your pulse,

check your vitals.

[LAUGHTER]

And they released us and then

the FBI actually drove us

to a hotel.

We actually had several hotels

booked throughout the New York

area in case the press would

find out where we were.

Fortunately they didn't,

all night long, actually for a

couple days we were there.

And we got in the hotel and

first thing, of course, with any

kind of transportation accident

is you have to take a drug test.

But then the next thing we do is

we sit down with what we call

our critical instrument response

people.

These are people trained to help

us with psychological issues.

And there's Sully and I sitting

on one bed and these two guys

sitting on the other bed, and

one starts to tell us, he says

you probably don't realize it

but you're certainly suffering

from post-traumatic shock and I

just want to let you know what

some of the symptoms are.

You probably won't sleep

tonight.

You probably won't sleep

tomorrow night.

Maybe on the third night you'll

go to bed because you're so dead

tired, but then after an hour

you'll wake up and the whole

thing will be going through your

mind like a freight train.

And we want you to know that

this is normal and that it will

go away, and if it doesn't, you

need to seek professional help

to make sure that it's not

permanently debilitating.

And then he says, okay,

go back to your rooms and relax.

[LAUGHTER]

Relax?

We just crashed an airplane.

You're not supposed to do that.

My whole career, everything that

I think of myself and everything

that I am is going to be up for

scrutiny in a very public way.

And we knew that then.

We absolutely knew that.

And I get to the room, I turn on

the TV, it's about the accident.

I turned it off.

I don't have anything

but the clothes on my back,

and they're still wet.

And there's nothing to read,

there's nothing to do.

I put on my jacket and I just

went and I walked around the

LaGuardia area all night long.

And I came back to the hotel

about 7:00 AM in the morning to

find out that everybody was in

an uproar because they thought

they'd lost me.

Somebody had gone to get me in

my room and I wasn't there.

We were there from Thursday

until Saturday morning when we

had to give our NTSB interview

they call it, which is eight

investigators around

a conference table and you.

I haven't slept in three days,

and this went on for three

hours.

Asking me questions.

It was nice.

It was polite, but still,

it was three hours.

And then it was over.

They bundled me in a cab.

One of our US Air guys gave me

$20 for a $40 cab ride to

LaGuardia.

[LAUGHTER]

I didn't carry much cash on me

when I went on trips,

so by the time I emptied my

wallet I actually had to stiff

the guy a little on the tip

but I didn't have anything.

And then I took a United flight.

[LAUGHTER]

Home to Chicago and the bus

up to Madison, Wisconsin,

where I live.

There's some other people who

were involved in the accident.

Doreen, our flight attendant,

she was in the hospital, and

they had to stitch up her leg,

but fortunately she was

going to be okay.

She was in a wheel chair for a

couple of weeks after that.

Our air traffic controller,

Patrick Harten, the voice that

you heard on that tape, he was

so confident in his abilities

to get an airplane back to

the airport.

He'd never had a circumstance

where he didn't get an airplane

back to the airport.

And as we went down, he talks

about how startled he was

when he lost our signal

as we went behind a skyscraper.

And he lost our blip

on his radar screen.

And then it came back as we went

between skyscrapers, and then he

lost it completely.

They immediately relieved him

on his scope.

And they put him in a room with

one of the other controllers,

and he said it was like he was

on suicide watch.

He called up his wife, and he

said something horrible has

happened.

I can't even talk about it, but

something horrible, horrible

has happened.

Well, apparently they have TVs

the air traffic control center.

I'm kind of suspicious about

that, but they do.

[LAUGHTER]

Anyway, this was almost

instantly on TV because

if you're going to do something

like this, it's just a

cross-town cab ride from all the

major media news networks.

So they were down there on the

shore with their cameras set up

in no time.

And it's already on TV and all

the controllers are seeing

everybody's out on the wings and

everybody's getting rescued and

everybody's surviving, and this

goes on for about 45 minutes

before somebody says, hey,

did anybody tell Paddy

that they lived?

He was still in this room.

They'd forgotten to tell him.

But these are the kind of

the small stories.

And every person on board that

airplane has a story and it's

unique and it's something that

they will carry with them

for the rest of time.

But I mentioned earlier,

was this a miracle?

And I'm not really going to

debate that, but I do want to

point out a few things, and

I peppered them through my

presentation and I hope you

caught some of them.

How Sully and I do flows,

we do checklists,

we have standard call-outs,

we have pre-prepared emergency

procedures that we instantly

adopted at just the voicing

of one or two words.

How when Sully said, "Brace for

impact," the flight attendants

immediately go into a path of

preparing the cabin for a crash

landing without having to have

any more direction.

When he said, "Evacuate,"

they instantly opened the doors,

get out the rafts.

And, in fact, they didn't even

know that we had landed on water

until they opened the door,

saw the Hudson River, and

they immediately changed their

commands to don life vests,

come this way.

Our air traffic controller,

Patrick Harten, one of the

reason why ended up where we

were was as soon as we declared

an emergency he said turn left

to 200 degrees because that's

a standard procedure off of

LaGuardia for emergencies

off of runway four.

Our ferry boat crews who trained

monthly and right there in

New York City and actually

every year have to go to safety

training down in Baltimore where

they actually use simulators

for emergencies like this.

The fire boats that were

instantly out there to help us.

The police helicopter

with the frogman.

I don't know where he came from.

[LAUGHTER]

Who sits around

in a frogman outfit?

[LAUGHTER]

But he was there.

And the emergency responders and

the police officers on shore.

Even the Manhattan medical

community called in every

off-duty doctor, nurse, because

they were preparing for a

massive emergency in Manhattan.

And, of course, they got,

I think, three people: Doreen

and two of our passengers.

But this is the kind of

emergency preparedness system

that surrounds us every day.

And we don't really,

I don't think we really realize

the impact of this and the

importance of this in our daily

lives until we're unfortunate

enough to need some of these

services.

And I think that this

illustrates what the miracle on

the Hudson really was.

Sully and I had a role, but so

did Donna, Doreen, and Sheila,

our flight attendants.

As did our 150 passengers

who were perfect through this

incident.

There was no pushing.

There was no shoving.

They helped each other

every step of the way.

The boat crews that instantly

came to our aid

and all of the first responders

both out on the water

and at the ferry dock.

That is what

made this incident successful.

So maybe it was a miracle.

I don't know.

Because so many people had to do

their jobs flawlessly

to reach this outcome.

That's my story of the miracle

on the Hudson today.

Thank you for allowing me

to share it with you.

[APPLAUSE]