Chesley Sullenberger, Hudson river hero

It's almost as though Captain Chesley B Sullenberger III, the Hero of the Hudson, knew that one day he'd have to crash-land a plane on water. Sullenberger, the 57-year-old pilot on US Airways Flight 1549, was entirely unfazed when, two minutes after he'd taken off from La Guardia airport, flocks of birds blew up both his engines. He radioed the airport, decided he couldn't make it back there, told his passenger to brace themselves and then calmly kept the wings of the Airbus out of the water as he landed on the Hudson. All 155 passengers survived, which Mayor Michael Bloomberg described as a miracle.
 
'Sully' had spent his career - first flying fighter jets, then commercial airliners - doing everything he could to prepare for such a crisis. He has 19,000 hours of flight experience, been the safety chairman of the Airline Pilots Association, worked on crash investigations, and wrote a research paper on 'error inducing contexts' in aviation with a team of Nasa scientists. The name of the consulting firm he set up two years ago - Safety Reliability Methods Inc - gives further indication of the man's mindset.
 
His friends in California talk affectionately of Sullenberger as an unassuming man, but now must get used to living next door to an All-American hero. As one of the rescuers remarked, "He looked absolutely immaculate. He looked like David Niven in an airplane uniform. He looked unruffled. His uniform was sharp. You could see him walking down the aisles making sure everybody got out."
 
Sullenberger, who George W Bush congratulated during his farewell television address, is married to a minor Californian celebrity. His blond, bouffant wife Lorrie is the founder of a company called Fit and Fabulous, and regularly appears on TV shows to demonstrate how playing with hula hoops, snowshoeing and the great outdoors can improve women’s lives. Lorrie "is passionate about helping women overcome their mental barriers about exercise", and leads hiking adventures with a "nurturing group of women" to Californian beauty spots. ·