"Sully" The Movie.
 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JZ3zSRgDtkA

Jury is out on this one.

I guess they had to "ham" it up a bit

yea, they should ditch the music

The man himself (Sully, not Hanks) gave a talk to a crowded house at last year's NBAA. Spell-binding ! I fear the film will be an anti-climax after seeing 'the real deal'...

Ahh I thought this was gonna be about the big Blue monster from Monsters Inc. :)

Whilst this was a very well executed water landing, I feel that the heroism bestowed on Mr. Sullenburger, and the associated hype was a little over the top. [Guess it would be, as it's America]. The event would have been the same, even if he had an empty aircraft, because he would still need to save himself. He had the whole of the Hudson to land on. In my opinion, the much better film would have been about the Air Transat A.330 that had a thin piece of concrete to land on, and made it, from a very long way away, after running out of fuel with a major leak.

JEM60

Wasn't there some hush-hush about the Transat case? I recall the Capt was interviewed once on camera but during and after the investigation he has been very silent.

I thought what that Capt did must have been equally amazing as the Hudson ditching, so I wonder what the hush is about.

A movie based on Air Transat 236 would lack the essential "will they, won't they?" tension - the aircraft was only 65nm from Lajes at FL345 when the second engine flamed out, so there wasn't really much doubt that they would make it (in fact the crew had to perform an orbit to lose enough height to make their final approach). Even the Gimli Glider incident, where it was far from certain that they would reach any airport, resulted in a pretty naff movie.

Compare that with the unknowns around US1549 - would they find an open space anywhere to land, would the A320 break up on impact, would it stay afloat long enough for the passengers to get off? While I'm sure the movie will take some liberties with events, I think we should wait to see it before making up our minds. :O

Maybe something to do with the reason they lost all their fuel :\

That "thin piece of concrete" is called a runway, isn't it? Pilots are used to landing on those. Ditching is a whole different ball game.

I don't usually have much emotional budget for airframe drivers, but I do feel somewhat sorry for Mr Skiles. He is obscured by the 'Michael Collins Effect' which is frustrating in this allegedly-enlightened era of CRM and emphasis on teamwork.

RightWayUp
The reason Air Transat had to glide was an incorrectly installed fuel pipe of some sort, wasn't it? I remember the crew had some difficulties calculating the fuel because of this, but I don't recall the Capt being responsible for maintenance of fuel pipes.

El Bunto
Agree on Mr Skiles. I have seen interviews with him and he seems just as top notch as Sully himself.

It will also be interesting so see if the rape of US Airways pilot's pension scheme is included. I think one if the reasons that Sully was not paraded in public by his employers after the event was that he gave them both barrels every time he did. Imagine being one of US Airways PR people. You have an incredible story that you'd like to tell but it will get stuffed up your bum if you try. You might even find that Sully insisted that reference to this this was included as a price for his help in making the film. It will be interesting to see.

....was that they opened the fuel xfeed with a fuel leak. If handled correctly the worse case scenario was they would have ended up with half their fuel, more than enough to fly a single engine landing in the Azores.

Five of the 12 causes/contributing factors identified by the GPIAA related to acts or omissions by the crew in respect of fuel management.

I'm now going to commit heresy so, first: The ditching with no minutes warning, at very low altitude whilst still in the intial stages of climb out AND whilst over a significant part of the world - was brilliant.

But, I could not help noticing that he was deeply fortunate that the Hudson was on the ebb and was heading in the same direction as he wanted to go. So the ditching was with the tide, not against it. Had the wind and tide been opposite, he might not have had the height to orientate to where it was going - even if that info was available to eyesight when you're doing so much else. I sit to be corrected on this.

I realise that the meedja folks want to make money out of anything but, I don't see how you make a whole movie out of an event that was less than 10 minutes start to finish? The actual time from strike to stopped in the water was, I think, even less?

I am sorry to hear that the First Officer has been sidelined by the flaming meedja. As to Cpt Sullenberger stuffing it to his employer? Go boy go. [They don't like it up 'em Captain]

RightWayUp, DaveReidUK

I checked it out on Wikipedia and yes, it seemed the crew made the fuel leak worse. Didn't read the report yet though. However, apparently the engine maintenance was really sub par, fitting a pipe of another dimension. This was the underlying cause for fuel leak. Unfortunately the crew failed to notice the leak. Will read the report, it may explain why they didn't notice/understand their fuel status.

Whatever happens, it can't be any worse than that Denzil Washington film ffrom a couple of years ago!

Do - it does.

Hi MrSnuggles,

It is quite an interesting read.

Ultimately they didn't realise it was a leak and preferred to think it was a computer problem, and even more unfortunately carried out the fuel imbalance checklist by memory hence opening the XFEED.

If they had used the QRH as they should have done, the first line would have told them to not carry out the checklist if fuel leak suspected.

IMHO: Sully's real skill was in making the decision to ditch in the Hudson and not make a 50/50 attempt at the beckoning runway ahead. That was the real skill; the ditching was a notch down on that. Skilful? Yes; something i hope all of us would expect to be able to execute. Would all of us have made the ditching decision/choice? I wonder.

The Air Transat scenario was a classic Swiss cheese affair. Many factors contributed to the crew being in a hole; some stupidity from engineers and from themselves. Pure luck put a runway within reach. They then executed a 'get out of the hole' manoeuvre excellently. Does that deserve medals and commendations? Not for me to comment, but they all survived. Without Lajes we'd be discussing the merits of Sully A320 on a calm river v A330 on a lumpy sea in the middle of nowhere. I suspect the latter would not have been fatality-less, and a deep sea rescue op would have involved more than a couple of ferries.