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Sully Sullenberger Says Fixes To Boeing’s 737 Max And Pilot Training Requirements Require Close Scrutiny

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In Part 1 of our interview series with Capt. Chesley “Sully” Sullenberger, we took a look back at his heroic landing on the Hudson River in 2009 after his Airbus A320 lost both engines shortly after takeoff. Here, in Part 2, Sullenberger discusses the acclaimed movie, “Sully: Miracle on the Hudson,” the Boeing 737 Max, whether he would take a space tourism flight and his father’s suicide.

Jim Clash: If you had a chance to pilot the upcoming FAA Certification Flight for the Boeing 737 Max, would you do it?

Chesley “Sully” Sullenberger: Well, I’ve flown the Full Motion Level D Simulator. I went to Boeing a few months ago with the Boeing pilots, and replicated both accident flights on the Max. I saw firsthand the challenges, distractions and ambiguities that they faced. I can understand how those crews who hadn’t been fully prepared, hadn’t been fully armed with the knowledge that they needed and hadn’t been given the tools that they needed to use, could not have solved the problem in the time and at the altitude they had. FAA pilots must fly certification flights, and there will be many certification flights, not just one. All the fixes to the airplane and the pilot training requirements must undergo close scrutiny before the airplane is returned to flight. There will be a lot of people around the world who will be doing such flights and evaluating them. I will follow this process with great interest.

Clash: What did you think of the 2016 “Sully: Miracle on the Hudson” film, and of Tom Hanks’ performance as you?

Sullenberger: First of all, it’s quite a leap of faith to give someone the rights to tell your life story. I think it’s tantamount to handing them the keys to your life, and watching them drive off with it. After several other people had offered to tell the story early on, and I had decided that it was not the appropriate time or way, the story finally found a good home in the hands of gifted storytellers who seemed to feel the same way that my family and I do, and to treat it with respect. It is an important story in how it continues to touch and inspire people. I think it was a good film, and net positive. And, of course, I had the realization that in this day and age for succeeding generations, much of their knowledge of history will be told in media. It was also important that I have as much involvement, even though it was limited, as I could to try to bring history to life in the best way possible. So yeah, I was very happy with the way they told the story for the most part, and, of course, how could I not be happy with Tom Hanks? He’s our generation’s everyman, our Jimmy Stewart.

Clash: If Virgin Galactic or Blue Origin offered you a free suborbital flight to space, would you take it?

Sullenberger: That’s a good question. I grew up during the fifties and sixties. My father was cool enough in those days to let me stay home from school early in the mornings to watch the first space launches live on television. I remember very vividly watching the Mercury flights, Alan Shepard, Gus Grissom, John Glenn and all of the others. I’ve always been fascinated by it. I would love to have done that. Commercial space seems to be a big part of how space exploration is being conducted now. Depending upon what I can learn about the process, and how rigorous their processes are [laughs], I would certainly consider it.

Clash: Your dad committed suicide. Depression sometimes runs in families. Have you suffered from it?

Sullenberger: I have not. Thursday, Dec. 7, 1995, when I first learned the news from my mother who unfortunately was the one to find him, was devastating for our family. It’s something I still think about. I wrote about it in my first book [“Highest Duty”]. We didn’t realize the challenges he was facing. We didn’t know he had depression. We couldn’t anticipate what he was going to do. He had had a serious illness, and had been in ICU for a long time, had just come home and was facing a long, difficult convalescence.

But I have been an advocate for suicide prevention. And I have worked with The Veterans Administration, not about suicide but about veterans’ issues. Since many of us on the flight displayed Post Traumatic Stress Disorder symptoms, I have done a series of interviews for the VA’s “Make the Connection” program. It’s a way of connecting veterans to each other’s stories, and to the help that they can get from sources available, whatever their challenges are, PTSD, depression, etc. It’s a very meaningful thing to do. My message for veterans and for everyone is that when you face certain challenges, it’s a normal human response to feel the way that you feel, and that you’re not the only one who has those feelings. There is help available, and you owe it to your family and yourself to get the help that they deserve, and that you need.

[Editor’s Note: In subsequent parts of our interview series with Capt. Sullenberger, we discuss fear, the biggest issues facing America and the aviation industry, the Deregulation Act of 1978, military flight training and more. Stay tuned to the Forbes Lifestyle channel.]

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