I would like to point out a parallel story with a different ending - Southern Airways outside Atlanta, 1977. A hailstorm had rendered both engines of a DC-9 inoperable. The crew spent considerable time in confusion trying to get a restart while vectoring to any suitable field. The results were bad. "We're putting it down on the highway..." Nine people on the ground died an awful fiery death at a destroyed gas station. Three fourths of those on the plane as well.
But Atlanta is fairly surrounded by large, calm bodies of water! My instincts certainly would have been - you're engines are dead, the airfields are beyond glide distance, it's still raining to beat the band - put it down on the water somewhere, anywhere, if for no other reason than to spare the passengers the ordeal of fire and those on the ground sudden death from above. It could have worked - Lake Altoona was easily in reach - but the PIC would have had to have a switch go off in his head as soon as the second engine failure happened - "put it on the water." That's what Sullenberger did - and regardless of how he flew in technical terms, he made absolutely the right decision.
I think survival must often be about these instantaneous decisions - procedures are fine but somehow you must recognize when the hand you've been dealt can't be played.
If the captain of Southern 242 had instantly decided - "My windshield's busted, my engines are dead, let's put it on Lake Altoona.." - the outcome could have been far different. But obviously, you can't train anyone for that sort of thinking.
In the end, I think what saved US Air was Sullenberger's casual glance at the Hudson on climb out - which fixed his mind on the solution even before there was any emergency.
-drl