Sully: Miracle on the Hudson Sully also known as Sully: Miracle on the Hudson
is an American biographical drama film released in the year 2016. The plot of the film follows
a pilot, Captain Chesley "Sully" Sullenberger whose plane gets hit by a flock of birds during
a flight. Having no other choice to save the passengers’ lives, Sully makes an emergency
landing in New York's Hudson River. Miraculously, all the passengers survive with most suffering
only minor injuries. Despite being hailed as a hero, the authorities lodge an investigation
that might stain Sully’s entire career. The film opens with two pilots flying a plane
and facing difficulties after both the plane’s engines fail to work shortly after takeoff.
Captain Chesley "Sully" Sullenberger who is flying the plane horribly crashes into a building.
Just then, Sully wakes up and it seems that he has been having a nightmare. That morning, he goes for
an early morning jog and is almost saved from getting trampled by a car. He seems dispirited,
lost, and anxious as if he has suffered a tragedy. Later, Sully is seen in a meeting where some
members of the National Transportation Safety Board inform him that an Aircraft Systems Team
is investigating the crash keeping in view multiple factors. It turns out that on the
afternoon of January 15, 2009, Captain Sully and First Officer Jeff Skies boarded US Airways
Flight 1549 from LaGuardia Airport to Charlotte Douglas International Airport and had to make an
emergency landing in River Hudson. The reason for the emergency landing according to Sully is dual
engine failure which was caused due to multiple bird strikes. The officer questions Sully why he
didn’t attempt to return to LaGuardia Airport. Sully explains to them that the altitude was
not enough therefore relying on his experience of managing the altitude and speed, he evaluated that
the best chance the passengers had was on the river. The officers inform him that according
to the aviation engineers’ theory, the plane had enough energy to make it back to a runway.
Therefore, the investigation team is planning to run return scenario algorithms that will generate
simulations with exact parameters to validate Sully’s story as they think it is unprecedented
and might be the pilot’s error. Moreover, they enquire Sully and Jeff about their
physical and mental health and their sleep schedule from the day before the crash.
Both Sully and Jeff assure them that they had enough sleep and were not drunk or drugged.
After spending the entire day with NTSB, Sully and Jeff are exasperated and make their way
back to the hotel. Since they are still in New York City for investigation reasons,
Sully is worried for his family who is being targeted by the press. After talking to his wife,
Lorrie, Sully finally arrives at the hotel but is overwhelmed to see a crowd of media waiting
to interview him. Though Sully is called a hero as there were no fatalities in the emergency landing,
the incident has left him traumatized and he feels overwhelmed by all the attention.
Lorrie feels worried for her husband and offers to come to stay with him but Sully asks her to look
after their daughters as they are also feeling overwhelmed by their house being surrounded by
media and cops. Sully starts losing his mind and hallucinating false scenarios of the news reporter
portraying him as a fraud. He is unable to sleep and calls Jeff to chat with him for a bit.
Both the friends go on a walk late at night and Jeff talks about how he has been suffering the
same as Sully. To lighten Sully’s mood, he tells him that they are going to have an interview with
one of the most esteemed news anchors. He also reassures him that he did the right thing and
that no one has the right to judge him. The next day during an interview,
Sully elucidates that he has been flying as a pilot for forty-two years.
The scene then goes into a flashback to when Sully was a young boy starting his career in flying.
Sully was always passionate about flying and gave his all to make a career out of it. He remembers
his instructor who guided him that he will get to learn new things at every step of his life.
After the interview is over, Sully walks to the window to see New York’s view only to
hallucinate his plane crashing into a building just like the nightmare he has been having.
Just then, his associate, Mike arrives to take him to the NTSB meeting. Before leaving, Mike
informs Sully that preliminary data from ACARS suggest that the left engine was still running at
idle power. Sully does not believe it as he felt both the engines were lost when he was on board.
Anyhow, Sully leaves for the meeting after evading the media. In the NTSB meeting, Jeff loses his
cool when the officers try to accuse Sully of giving false information. Jeff makes it clear
that he is the only witness who was present in the cockpit and can vouch for Sully’s stated facts.
Sully tries to manage the situation calmly and elucidates that he has studied multiple accidents
of the deceased pilots and was sure that landing in the river Hudson was the best option after
both the engines stopped working. However, NTSB thinks that the left engine had enough power to
land the plane at either LaGuardia or Teterboro Airport. Sully demands to see the engine but it
is impossible as the engine got damaged during the landing and has still not been recovered.
Moreover, the NTSB claims that several confidential computerized simulations
show that the plane could have landed successfully, undamaged at LaGuardia keeping in
view all the flight parameters including height, weight, and altitude. Sully demands to see the
actual simulations and both he and Jeff insist that the engines had really stopped working.
The NTSB refuses to give the actual simulations early as they fear that
they can leak it into the press. The meeting adjourns, leaving Sully and Jeff perplexed.
Later, the duo is invited to David Letterman’s show and they enjoy their
time since David is known for his outstanding comedy. At night, while talking to his wife,
Sully feels even more overwhelmed and shares his concern that his pilot career might end soon. He
tells Lorrie that the NTSB suspects it may be a case of pilot error. Lorrie assures him that he
is a hero who saved the lives of 150 passengers but Sully can’t stop thinking about the Airbus
simulations and keeps doubting himself for endangering the lives of the passengers.
He then goes into a flashback of January 15, when he is boarding US Airways Flight 1549.
The passengers are seen boarding the plane and are all set to take off. Before taking off,
Jeff tells Sully that he is pretty impressed with Sully’s air safety consulting business.
It turns out that along with running his pilot career, Sully has been running an air safety
consulting business too. After the engines start, the flight’s crew are seen making sure
everything is up to par. Finally, the flight takes off and three minutes into it, the plane
strikes a flock of birds, damaging both engines. Sully reports to the air traffic controllers
that they have lost thrust on both engines and are turning back towards LaGuardia.
However, soon enough Sully realizes that he cannot turn back and has to make an emergency
landing on the river Hudson. The Air Traffic Control loses the flight signal and Patrick,
who was in contact with Sully, starts panicking. He sends a chopper over the river to keep an
eye on the plane. Having no other choice, Sully ditches the aircraft on the river.
The scenes come back to the present. After finishing the phone call with his wife,
Sully goes for a run and when he sees an aircraft in his vicinity,
he reminisces about the time when he successfully landed the aircraft on a runway despite facing
upthrust difficulties. Sully is unable to pull himself together and runs to a nearby bar to get a
drink. The bartender instantly recognizes him and gives him a shot while appreciating his efforts.
Sully has the drink and goes back in the flashback to when the plane hit the river. As soon as the
emergency landing completes, Sully comes out of his cockpit and orders the passengers to wear
their life vests and evacuate. The emergency exit doors are immediately opened and passengers are
evacuated by the crew on the aircraft’s wings. While many of them start evacuating, some start
panicking and chaos prevails everywhere. Soon, the rescue ferry boats, helicopters, and the scuba
cops arrive and the passengers are successfully rescued though some face mild injuries. Before
leaving the plane, Sully makes sure everyone has evacuated and is the last one to be rescued.
As soon as Sully gets onto the rescue ship, he calls Lorrie and informs her that he is
safe and sound. Lorrie who was clueless about the incident is startled to find it on the news
that her husband’s plane crashed on a river. Meanwhile, Sully is curious to get a count
of the survivors to ensure that all of them have evacuated. On the other hand,
the rescued passengers start calling their loved ones at home to assure them about their safety.
Patrick who is sulking over the loss of the flight is ecstatic to find out that it landed safely
and everyone was saved miraculously. Meanwhile, Sully takes a sigh of relief in the emergency room
when he is told that all 155 passengers are safe and secure. He is warmly welcomed at the hotel
where he has to stay and is totally surprised to see the loving reaction of strangers toward him.
When he turns on the television, he is confused to see that he is being
hailed as a hero around the world. The scene goes back to the present
when Sully rushes out of the bar in a hurry and makes a phone call. He calls his friend,
Larry, and asks him to reschedule the Airbus simulations before his testimony is complete.
Sully feels that he has a right to see the simulations and he has a feeling that with human
pilots and a computer simulation, the results are going to be different. The next day, before
Sully’s public hearing at the NTSB, Lorrie calls him and asks him to reassure her that everything
will be fine. Being a caring husband, Sully reassures her that things will get back to normal.
The public hearing starts and the NTSB arranges to have the simulations rerun with live pilots
that are then conveyed to the public. The live pilots re-enact the same scenario that happened
during the flight which results in a successful landing at the LaGuardia Airport. The NTSB then
replays the recording of the successful landing at the Teterboro Airport implying
that Sully could have successfully landed on the runway and that it was an error from his side.
Sully objects that the simulations are impracticable as they do not take human
factors into account which include the element of surprise and the time required for analysis
and decision-making. According to Sully, the simulations rerun by the pilots resulted in
successful landings because they were already instructed that they had to take a left turn and
make an emergency landing. They knew in advance about the situation which is why they were able
to practice the scenario several times. Plus, they had no passengers to think about, and were in no
danger themselves. But since no one has ever been trained about an unprecedented incident like this,
Sully and Jeff had to do what they thought was the best at that moment.
Sully then smartly enquires the board about the number of practice attempts the pilot took before
recording the simulation. It is then revealed that the pilot who landed at Teterboro had 17 practice
attempts before he successfully landed the plane to safety, so the board accepts Sully’s criticism.
Since Sully had 35 seconds for decision-making, the simulations are rerun with a 35-second pause
before the plane is diverted. As expected, the attempt to land on LaGuardia ends with the plane
landing short of the runway. Whereas, the attempt to land in Teterboro crashes the plane into
buildings before even reaching the airport. While the NTSB members feel embarrassed,
Sully and Jeff can’t stop smiling as they have been proved right.
Jeff demands to hear the actual recording of the flight Airways Flight 1549. The crash recording
is played and it turns out that as soon as Sully and Jeff found out that both the engines are lost,
Jeff started reading the QRH manual which is a Quick Reference Handbook for aviation safety.
However, Sully realized that both the engines were destroyed and since they were short on time,
he quickly made a decision to land on the river Hudson. Before making the emergency landing,
Sully informed the passengers to “Brace for impact” and landed directly on the water.
After hearing the audio, Jeff feels overwhelmed and leaves the hearing room
with Sully for a quick break. When they arrive back, the NTSB informs them that they recovered
the second engine from the river and after analysis, it becomes evident that there was
extensive damage to both the guide vanes and fan blades of the engine. Five compressor
blades were fractured and eight carriable guide vanes missing which means that ACARS
data was wrong and Sully’s testimony was right. It is confirmed that the engine was severely
damaged by the bird strike and the board members agree that Sully had acted correctly during the
flight. The film ends with Sully holding everyone equally responsible for the successful outcome
including the passengers, the crew, the air traffic controllers,
the rescue boats, and the scuba cops. An epilogue states that on January 15, 2009,
more than 1200 first responders and 7 ferry boats carrying 130 commuters rescued the passengers and
crew of flight 1549. The best of New York came together and it took them a total of 24 minutes.
This movie has a rating of 7.4 on IMDb. The budget of this movie was around $60 million and at the
box office, it earned $240.8 million. I hope you all liked this video. If yes, then make sure to
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