What started the questioning was that Sully did not maker a hard turn into wind and commence a glide approach. The established industry wisdom until about ten years before the accident was that a turbo jet twin can always make it back to the departure airport. The FAA would probably have been staffed by vastly experienced pilots of the "old school". If using full power and a simple climb then that opinion would previously have been correct, They however may have been using reduced power for take off or in the middle climb The fan engines may have been producing huge drag when seized or windmilling. The folks in the FAA found this challenging as it did not fit what they thought was the norm and so they started to seek an explanation, the obvious one as always was pilot incompetence. Only when the error was shown to them by trusted people did they start to reconsider. I flew the 737 3/4/500 for many years and we often discussed this problem, it was noticeable that ex military people favoured the prompt hard turn glide approach solution rather than thinking first and potentially missing the curve. Solly decided as he was paid to do and landed smoothly in an area free of obstruction, no one died. The assumption that he was not paying attention seems grossly unfair to me