Sure, he saved those 155 of people from death, but there were millions relieved to know there was something other then the Farewell Speech of w to entertain them. He's my hero for that too!

Yep, gotta give the pilot some serious props for handling the situation. See, there are some good things that come from Texas. The pilot went to the high school here in the town I live in.

It goes to show that you need to choose your former military pilots carefully.

Had a certain former Texas Air National Guard pilot been flying the plane, they'd all be dead in the mud at the bottom of the Hackensack River.

The captain was as well prepared and trained as anyone could be. He had a seasoned copilot and cabin crew to help ditch the plane and get the passengers out. They were quickly surrounded by ferry crews and emergency services who were also trained and skilled in rescue operations.

It was a wonderful demonstration of the importance of preparation, initiative, competence, and execution in dealing with an emergency.

I was fascinated to find out the pilot also flies gliders. When we lived in upstate NY we often went to watch the gliders.

I think that experience flying gliders may have saved the day. Maybe all pilots should get such training.

When I saw that plane down in the water, all I could think was "hypothermia."

Thanks for this blog!

I’ve been a passenger in commercial aircraft around the world flown by Blacks. American Blacks, African Blacks, and expatriate Blacks in Asian countries from where I had no idea they originated. Fixed wing and rotor wing aircraft types. Nothing at all typifies them as pilots with the exception they happened to be Blacks. But when the details of the water landing in NY started coming out, I earnestly hoped the pilot wasn’t Black. If he were I knew what we would be in store for.

There is a lot of media coverage on the incident as the event warrants. But can you imagine for a moment what we would be subject to if the heroic pilot were Black? He or she easily could have been.

A fawning media would subject us to a barrage of documentaries, fluff interviews of the pilot, each of his family members, his Sunday school teachers, former girlfriends, you name it, for weeks on end. The guy would wind up with name recognition Oscar winners would envy. High school textbooks would have at least two chapters on the guy. Endless documentaries on TV. Movies about his exploits would start coming out. Then there would be endless sequels. Even his children’s names would be household words. I don’t mean to be flippant here, but there’s a good possibility the heroic pilot would be honored with a national holiday.

The media barrage would only be a little less worse had the very same pilot been born with a European name like Rodriguez instead of a European name which originated just a few hundred miles north and east. I feel everyone who does something exceptionally beneficial or heroic should be given all the recognition they deserve. But the way the media selectively runs some things into the ground anymore is nauseating.

For the record, I disagree with banning spric. The comments are ignorant and hateful, but so what? This kind of poster exists to drive us all crazy, and I have spent more time than I should have responding, but the appropriate way to deal with dopes like this is to ignore them.

Banning them feeds the tiny little flames in their tiny little brains; we are above this stuff. The comments about the pilot are so funny that I just want to say this to spric:

IMAGINE IF THE GUY WHO WAS JUST ELECTED PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA! BY AN ENORMOUS ELECTORAL COLLEGE VICTORY!

JUST IMAGINE ALL THE TV COVERAGE THERE WOULD BE OF THAT!

IMAGINE THAT THE COVERAGE WAS PARTLY BECAUSE HE IS A BLACK MAN IN A COUNTRY THAT ONCE ENSLAVED BLACKS, BUT ALSO BECAUSE HE IS SO DAMN SMART AND SO DAMN GOOD AT WHAT HE DOES THAT HE WON OVER WHITES AND LATINOS AND OTHERS WHO JUST WANTED A PERSON WITH A WORLD VIEW IN THE WHITE HOUSE AND DECIDED THAT THIS BLACK MAN WAS THE BEST CHOICE!

Yeah. spric. What if the pilot had been black? We have elected a black president, NOT because he was black, but because he was the best person for the job. Stick around. You might learn something.