Highest Duty

by Chesley B. Sullenberger

  One of the books I had with me on that trip was Just Culture by Sidney Dekker, borrowed from my local library. Dekker writes about the balancing act between accountability and learning when it comes to people reporting safety issues. I have long believed that we can make a company culture, government, or community safer by encouraging people to report their own mistakes and safety deficiencies. So this book was a confirmation of my own study of these issues and my years of experience as a pilot.

  As I sat in my middle seat on the way to Charlotte, I found myself reading and taking notes for my consulting business. I don’t recall trading too many words with the passengers on either side of me.

  When I’m a passenger in the back of a plane, though I’m reading or trying to nap or worrying about the shuttered Jiffy Lube, I still have a general awareness of how the flight is going and what the pilots are doing. I can feel the movements of the airplane. Most of my fellow passengers are engaged with their own books or are tapping away on their laptops, and they don’t realize subtle things. But even when I’m not trying, I can tell when the plane is climbing or descending, or when the pilots are changing the flap setting or the engine thrust. For pilots, that general awareness comes with the territory.

  The flight I was on had left San Francisco at 7:30 A.M. Pacific time, and arrived in Charlotte at 3:15 P.M. Eastern time. I got something to eat at the airport in Charlotte and then made my way to the gate for my first piloted flight of the four-day trip. I’d be going right back to San Francisco, flying an Airbus A321, carrying about 180 passengers.

  Once I got to the gate, I smiled at some of the passengers and greeted the three flight attendants—Sheila Dail, Donna Dent, and Doreen Welsh. I had flown with Sheila and Donna before. I’m guessing I had shared trips with Doreen, too, some years ago, when we were both based in Pittsburgh. Because US Airways hasn’t hired new flight attendants in years, all our crews are veterans. Doreen, now fifty-eight, joined the company in 1970 when it was Allegheny Airlines. That’s thirty-eight years of experience. Both Sheila, fifty-seven, and Donna, fifty-one, have more than twenty-six years with the airline.

  At the gate, I also shook hands with Jeff Skiles, the first officer who’d be flying with me. He and I had never met before, so we introduced ourselves. Along with Sheila, Donna, and Doreen, we’d be a team for the next four days.

  Despite all my years as a pilot, it’s common for me to have a first officer or flight attendants I’ve never met. Even after some serious downsizing, US Airways still has about 5,000 pilots and 6,600 flight attendants. It’s impossible to know them all.

  It is standard at our airline for a crew to have a brief meeting together at the start of a trip. It’s vital to make individuals feel like a team quickly so that they can work almost as well together on the first flight as they naturally would after having flown several flights together. So before the passengers boarded we stood—Jeff, Sheila, Donna, Doreen, and I—in the aisle of the empty first-class cabin for a couple minutes, and I said a few words.

  As the captain, it’s up to me to set the tone. I want to be approachable. I asked the flight attendants to be my eyes and ears during the days ahead, to tell me about anything important that I couldn’t observe from the cockpit. I asked them to let me know what they needed to do their jobs—catering, cleaning, whatever—and told them I’d try to help. I wanted them to know I was looking out for them. “I can’t get you your retirement plans back, but I can do a few things that will make your quality of life better. One of them is, when we arrive at our destination on the last flight of a day, I’ll call the hotel and make sure that they’ve sent the van so we’re not waiting for twenty minutes.”

  Jeff, forty-nine years old, was very friendly from the moment we said hello, and in the days to follow I’d learn more about him. Like me, he had earned his private pilot license at sixteen. But he came from an aviation family; both his parents were also pilots. He had worked for US Airways for twenty-three years, with twenty thousand flight hours, and had risen to be a captain. But due to cutbacks in flights and planes, and the effect on the pilots’ seniority list, he was now flying as a first officer. I have twenty-nine years under my belt, so these days, I’m among the most senior of pilots at my airline.

  Jeff had been flying the Boeing 737 for eight years, and had just completed training to fly the Airbus. These seven flights over four days with me actually would be his first trip on the Airbus without an instructor. As Jeff put it, “It’s my first trip without training wheels.”

  When I meet other pilots, I don’t try to pigeonhole them. I figure I’ll learn about them and their flying style in the cockpit. There’s no need to rush to judgment. Still, my first impressions of Jeff were good ones.

  From our initial moments together in the cockpit, for that flight to San Francisco, I found him to be conscientious and very well versed in everything about the Airbus. If he hadn’t told me this was his first trip since being trained, I wouldn’t have known.

  Once pilots push back from the gate, and until we are above ten thousand feet in the air, cockpit crews aren’t allowed to talk to each other about anything except the details of the flight. But after we were well on our way to San Francisco, Jeff and I were able to learn about each other. He told me he had three children, seventeen, fifteen, and twelve, and so we talked about our kids for a bit.

  Somewhere over the snow-covered Rocky Mountains, I thought about that thrill I often get when I’m in the air, just taking in the majesty below, and the stars and planets around me, and appreciating all of it. It feels like we’re floating through an invisible ocean of air, dotted with stars.

  There’s a poem I love, “Sea Fever,” by John Masefield, which includes the line: “All I ask is a tall ship and a star to steer her by.” I often think of that line when I see the planet Venus in the southwest corner of the sky as I head to the West Coast at certain times of the year. If I’m ever unable to access the global positioning system or use the compass in the cockpit, I know I’ll be OK. I could just keep Venus in the left front corner of the windshield and we would reach California.

  I mentioned to Jeff that I wished I could have my daughters take a flight with me in the cockpit of a commercial airliner, to see the pilot’s-eye view of such scenes. In long-ago eras of aviation, that would have been possible. But in the wake of September 11, of course, restrictions on cockpit access were only increased. My girls will never see the skies through my eyes.

  We also talked about our side jobs. Like a lot of pilots, Jeff also sees the need to supplement his income. He lives in Madison, Wisconsin, and has a business as a general contractor, building new homes.

  Jeff said he’d Googled me before the trip because he was looking for my e-mail address. He wanted to share some scheduling information with me. Before the landing in the Hudson, of course, there wasn’t much about me on the Internet. So the first thing he came upon was the Web site for my consulting business.

  “I read all about your company,” he said, and then he just grinned. “Man, I thought I was a good bullshitter, but you take the cake!”

  I was intrigued that he had Googled me—I don’t ever recall flying with another pilot who had—and I was also amused by how direct he was. “I consider myself a connoisseur of bullshit,” he told me, “and you make that company of yours sound like it’s this big operation. But then I read it more closely and I realized it’s just you. You’re the company. Good for you! I admire people who can take an acorn, and with a little bit of bullshit, make it into an oak.”

  I know my business isn’t a Fortune 500 empire, but I’d argue a bit with his characterization. I really am passionate about safety issues, and about what the airline industry can teach the world. I’m proud of my work, and told Jeff that. Still, I got a kick out of his straight-shooting style. We had a good laugh about my fledgling consulting operation as we made our way to San Francisco.

  Jeff was at the controls for a lot of the trip, and I was impressed by the ease with which he w
as handling things. We were aware, of course, that because he had fewer than a hundred hours on the Airbus, there were restrictions we had to follow. He couldn’t land or take off where runways might be contaminated by snow or ice. And certain airports—because of high terrain or complicated takeoff or landing procedures—were off-limits to him. San Francisco was one of these airports, so I needed to land the plane there.

  When we finally touched down on the runway at 8:35 P.M., I was back exactly where I’d started at seven-thirty that morning. But the good news was there were no flight delays; it was still early enough. There was time for me to get to my car in the airport parking lot, and drive fifty minutes northeast to Danville, so I could spend the night with Lorrie and the kids.

  This was a bonus layover. Instead of being gone, as usual, for the entire four-day trip, I got to go home.

  WHEN I got into the house on that Monday night, it was nine forty-five and the girls were heading to bed. I didn’t get to spend much time with them. But the next morning, I was able to drop them both off at school.

  Kelly, now in eighth grade, had to be at her middle school by eight. I kissed her good-bye and told her I’d see her at the end of the week.

  Then it was time to drive Kate to her high school. Actually, I was driven by Kate. She still had her driver’s permit then, and was always looking to get experience, if not necessarily lessons. So she took the wheel and I got in the front passenger seat as a combination copilot and “check airman.” That’s the term for a pilot who is an instructor accompanying another pilot to assess his or her skills.

  Being with Kate at the wheel of the family SUV was like being with Jeff on the Airbus. I was observing, admiring, and taking notes.

  My take on Kate is that she’s a good driver, though a bit overconfident. She’s also not sure all the rules of the road apply to her, so I’ve tried to impress upon her the fact that driving laws prevent anarchy. In the airline industry, we’d say she’s “selective about compliance.” But overall, she’s doing well. I’m pretty comfortable with her driving abilities, and told her so that morning. When she pulled up in front of her school, I kissed her and promised her I’d see her at the end of the week.

  After I got back to the house, I made Lorrie a cup of tea and we had a pretty serious conversation. Because the Jiffy Lube franchisee had decided not to renew his lease six months earlier, and our commercial property—the land and the empty building—was still vacant, we were in serious financial straits. How long could we keep paying the mortgage without rent coming in? “Not much longer,” I told Lorrie, and we discussed whether we’d need to sell our family home to solve our money problems. That would be a worst-case scenario, we agreed, and we had several other contingency plans for dealing with this before we’d have to sell. Still, it was a sobering and unresolved dilemma that would have to be tabled until my return later in the week. I needed to head back to the airport in San Francisco.

  Before I left home, I made myself two sandwiches, one turkey and one peanut butter and jelly, and put them in a lunch bag along with a banana. This also has become part of my ritual. Until the last eight years or so, airlines provided meals for pilots and flight attendants on long flights. Economic cutbacks have ended that little perk.

  On this day, because it was later in the morning, I was able to kiss Lorrie good-bye. An hour later I was at the airport again, preparing to pilot the A319 Airbus to Pittsburgh. Once Jeff and I got the plane into the air and on its way, those sandwiches and the banana served me well.

  Much about flying has a hold on me. I still find it satisfying on many fronts—especially when I look out the cockpit window. I am grateful for all the adventures to be found at thirty thousand feet. But I’ve got to be honest: Eating PB&J while smelling the gourmet beef being distributed with wine in first class—that’s a sure reminder that there are less-than-glamorous aspects of my job.

  After we landed in Pittsburgh on that Tuesday night, I got in a van with Jeff and the flight attendants and we headed over to the La Quinta Inn & Suites near the airport.

  We had to be flying again exactly ten hours later. This was close to what we call a “minimum night.” Minimum rest for a crew overnighting between flights is nine hours and fifteen minutes. It sounds like enough time, but it’s actually pretty tight. The clock starts ticking the minute the plane arrives and is blocked in at the gate. It continues until push-back of the next morning’s flight. In between, we have to get out of the airplane, and to and from the hotel. We have to leave for the airport at least an hour, and sometimes ninety minutes, before the morning flight. Add in time for showering and getting something to eat, and our actual time sleeping is usually about six and a half hours.

  Our flight that morning to LaGuardia Airport in New York left at 7:05. Because it was snowing, I handled the controls. We arrived at 8:34, got a new load of passengers, and were slated to head back to Pittsburgh at 9:15 A.M. Because of weather and traffic, we had a forty-five-minute delay on the ground at LaGuardia.

  I still have my trip sheet from that week, and as always, I had scribbled notations alongside each flight. I keep track of all the actual flight times, to make sure I get paid properly. Pilots are paid per hour of flying, and “flying” is tallied from the moment you move away from the gate in one city to the moment you arrive at the gate in the next city.

  Delays frustrate everybody—pilots, too, of course—but the fact is that we start getting paid when the plane has pushed back from the gate. If we sit on the tarmac for hours, we’re getting paid. If we’re waiting at the gate, we’re not.

  Anyway, we got back to Pittsburgh before noon, and because we had a long layover of twenty-two hours until the next leg of our trip, we were able to spend Wednesday night farther from the airport, at the Hilton downtown. I went for a walk around Pittsburgh that afternoon by myself, bundled up in the snow, listening to my iPod. Jeff and I talked about having dinner together, but he had something to do, and so I was alone that night. The flight attendants were also on their own.

  Because most US Airways flight crews are older now—no young blood has been hired for years—we’re more tired and less social than we used to be. The wilder “Coffee, Tea, or Me” days are long over, and mostly predated my airline career. About a third to half of flight attendants and pilots these days are what those of us in the industry call “slam clickers” they slam the doors to their hotel rooms and click the locks. They don’t socialize and they spend their entire layovers in their rooms.

  Granted, most of them aren’t really slamming their doors. They say good night nicely and then disappear.

  I understand that the constant travel is a grind, and that my colleagues are tired or don’t want to go out on the town, wasting money. And I’m not a partyer by any stretch. But I decided a long time ago that if I was going to be gone from home sixteen or eighteen days a month—spending 60 percent of my time away from my family—I wasn’t going to waste half my life sitting in a hotel room watching cable TV. And so I try at least to take a walk or go for a run. I’ll visit a new restaurant, even if I’m by myself. I try to have a life. If members of the flight crew want to join me, I’m grateful for their company. If not, I’m comfortable on my own.

  On that Wednesday night, I called home and talked to my daughters. I described my walk in the snow, and asked them about what they were up to at school. They are teens now, wrapped up in their own lives, so they’re not hugely engaged in hearing details of my day. I’m always actively searching for ways to connect with them, to keep things fresh.

  The next morning, January 15, it was snowing, and Jeff and I needed to take an Airbus A321 from Pittsburgh down to Charlotte.

  Because of the deicing in Pittsburgh, we were thirty minutes late arriving in Charlotte. And we switched planes there, from an Airbus A321 to an A320. That A320 was the plane that would take us to the Hudson. The flight from Charlotte landed at LaGuardia just after 2 P.M. It had been snowing in New York, but by the time we arrived, the snow had stopp
ed.

  At LaGuardia, the gate agents started loading the new passengers onto the plane. I got the flight plan for the next leg—Flight 1549 from New York back to Charlotte—and then ran to find something to eat. I bought a tuna sandwich for eight dollars and change, and expected I’d get to eat it once we were at cruising altitude on our return to Charlotte.

  Back at the gate, passengers had begun boarding, and I didn’t get a chance to say anything to any of them. Some would later remark that I looked older with my gray hair, and they felt reassured that I was a veteran pilot. I just nodded and smiled at a few of them as I made my way back into the cockpit with my sandwich.

  While the plane was being serviced, I checked the fuel load and the weather, and then went over the flight plan. As first officer, Jeff’s job was to take a walk around the exterior of the plane, making an inspection. Nothing seemed out of the ordinary to either of us.

  It was a full flight, 150 passengers, plus the crew—me, Jeff, Sheila, Donna, and Doreen. Just before we pushed back from the gate, Jeff and I remarked to each other that we had enjoyed flying together. This would be the final leg of our trip. I was planning to leave Charlotte at 5:50 P.M., flying home to San Francisco as a passenger, and Jeff was going to head back that evening to Wisconsin.

  We pushed back from the gate at 3:03 P.M. Eastern standard time, and we joined the queue of airplanes waiting for our turn to take off.

  In our ears, Jeff and I heard the constant chatter on the party line of the LaGuardia Tower Air Traffic Control frequency. We were listening in and watching as airplanes took off and landed on the two intersecting runways at one of the nation’s busiest airports. As happens every day, it was a carefully choreographed ballet where everyone knew their parts exceedingly well.

  At 3:20 P.M. and thirty-six seconds, the tower controller spoke to us: “Cactus fifteen forty-nine, LaGuardia, runway four position and hold, traffic will land three one.” The tower controller was instructing us to taxi onto the active runway and hold in position to await clearance for takeoff. He was also advising us that we would see traffic landing on the intersecting runway 31. (“Cactus” is the radio call sign for US Airways flights. The airline chose it after we combined with the former America West Airlines. Though it was adopted to preserve the heritage of America West, some pilots and controllers would prefer that we had kept our old call sign, “USAir,” to avoid confusion. Having a name that doesn’t match the name painted on the side of an airplane can be confusing, particularly at foreign airports.)