Bubbers, that statement to me illustrates a real problem with the Hudson ditching.
Sully and his crew did a great job and were rightly praised but just because the outcome was successful does not mean we suspend our critical faculties. We still need to look at the incident and determine the lessons to be learnt. There are things to learn from all the great things they did but there are also lessons to be learnt from what could have gone better. Unfortunately some only look at the outcome and seem to pretend that all was perfect.
The importance of speed control and monitoring, to me, is the key lesson from the what could have gone better category.
Fact is he got slow, upto 19kts slow, that is well documented by the NTSB and beyond dispute. Its why he entered Alpha Prot and why the flare was problematic. It's also fact they splashed down at 12.5 FPS 750 FPM and I rather suspect the NTSB had access to the camera footage too but seem to have drawn a different conclusion to the one Bubbers does. But, hey, what do the NTSB know?