U.S. Airways pilot Capt. Chesley “Sully” Sullenberger (left) walks through Charlotte Douglas International Airport with co-pilot First Officer Jeff Skiles.
Associated Press
CHARLOTTE -- Captain Chesley "Sully" Sullenberger has flown his final flight.
The pilot who landed a US Airways plane safely on the Hudson River last January said Wednesday he is retiring after 30 years and plans to spend some of his time pressing for more flight safety.
"My message going forward is that I want to remind everyone in the aviation industry -- especially those who manage aviation companies and those who regulate aviation -- that we owe it to our passengers to keep learning how to do it better," he said at a news conference shortly after his last flight landed at Charlotte Douglas International Airport.
Sullenberger officially retired at a private ceremony in Charlotte with fellow pilots and other US Airways employees.
The 59-year-old Sullenberger joined US Airways' predecessor airline in 1980.
Sullenberger flew his final flight, from Fort Lauderdale, Fla., to his base at Charlotte Douglas International Airport, on Wednesday with his co-pilot during the Hudson landing, First Officer Jeff Skiles.
Sullenberger said he plans to spend more time with his family in retirement and will write another book. He will also continue to talk to lawmakers about raising minimum qualifications for pilots and work to lower the maximum number of hours pilots are able to work in a single day.
He said it's more difficult to be a pilot today than 30 years ago.
"There is so much pressure to hire people with less experience. Their salaries are so low that people with greater experience will not take those jobs. We have some carriers that have hired some pilots with only a few hundred hours of experience. ... There's simply no substitute for experience in terms of aviation safety," Sullenberger said.
All 150 passengers survived the emergency river landing in January 2009 when a flock of Canada geese was sucked into the plane's engines minutes after taking off from New York's LaGuardia, headed for Charlotte.
"Each generation of pilots hopes that they will leave their profession better off than they found it," Sullenberger said. "In spite of the best efforts of thousands of my colleagues, that is not the case today."
He said about a half dozen of the passengers on Flight 1549 joined him on his last flight.
One of the survivors of the Hudson River landing, Mary Berkwitz, said by phone from her Stallings, N.C., office that she was disappointed to hear Sullenberger was retiring.
"Every time I get on a plane, I feel like, Oh God, I hope it's Sully at the pilot's seat. Now I know it's not going to be. In a way it's sad," she said.
