Originally Posted by
Aihkio
I have a feeling that in both cases the pilots did not necessarily make the best choices but they avoided the bad ones and that is often enough. In any profession experience is for weeding those out, training helps but it is no substitute for experience.
In Russian case there was simply no choice but land ahead may be little left or right. It may be interesting to know why he chose to land with gear up. Sully's case he had to make the decision not to return. There was nothing wrong in every thing he did except dropping speed and getting into alpha prot that prevented a proper flare and resulted in heavy impact. However considering the work load and the time frame it's ok.