Ambassador ‘Sully’ Sullenberger Shares Lessons in Leadership and Resilience

Captain and former U.S. Ambassador “Sully” Sullenberger is most famous for the 2009 “Miracle on the Hudson,” during which he and First Officer Jeffrey Skiles safely landed a disabled Airbus A320 in the river near midtown Manhattan. Even without that remarkable achievement, Ambassador Sullenberger has had an impressive career as both an Air Force Academy graduate and fighter pilot and later a commercial airline pilot, logging more than 20,000 flight hours. More recently, he served as U.S. Ambassador to the International Civil Aviation Organization.

At Wednesday morning’s Your Academy event, Ambassador Sullenberger sat down with AAOS President Paul Tornetta III, MD, PhD, FAAOS, to discuss the famed water landing, how to develop a culture of empathy and collaboration, and the importance of prioritizing safety.

The seeds of resilience
On Jan. 15, 2009, US Airways Flight 1549 took off from New York’s LaGuardia Airport when it struck a flock of birds. The jet almost immediately lost power, and Ambassador Sullenberger and FO Skiles had to rapidly develop and execute an emergency plan. The elapsed time from bird strike to landing was approximately 3.5 minutes.

The first two choices were returning to La Guardia or landing at Teterboro Airport in New Jersey. Instinctively, Ambassador Sullenberger knew they did not have enough altitude for either option. Out of necessity, he chose to land on the water.

“I very quickly compartmentalized my mind and focused clearly on the task at hand,” Ambassador Sullenberger recalled to Dr. Tornetta. “I did not have time to do everything I needed to do. I had to focus on the few things that would help us the most and ignore everything I didn’t have time for.” Without discussion, the two pilots were aligned. FO Skiles called out altitudes as they quickly descended. All 150 passengers and crew survived. Ambassador Sullenberger emphasized that 149 would have been a failure.

Ambassador Sullenberger attributed his successful landing to several factors. One was his love of both flying and learning. He wanted to know everything about that aircraft—to the point that it was an extension of his own body. Part of that motivation was being competitive with himself, something he honed in the Air Force. It was not enough to land a plane safely. He would often self-debrief after a flight to understand what went well and what could have gone better. He was always striving to be the best version of himself.

There were also system factors at play on that day in 2009. More than 20 years before Flight 1549, Ambassador Sullenberger helped spearhead an effort to reform cockpit culture. “Captains were not good leaders,” he said, “They were solo acts.” Pilots lacked the interpersonal and leadership skills that could create cohesive teams and, in the process, enhance safety.

“We were able to change the culture so that the most junior, brand-new hire could approach a third-year captain about an issue and know that he or she would listen,” Ambassador Sullenberger explained. “We thought it would be a really hard sell, but it wasn’t at all.”

Dr. Tornetta noted how valuable an open culture can be in the OR to improve patient safety. People need to feel empowered to speak up when they believe something might be going wrong.

To achieve a similar rapport in the cockpit, “We flattened the hierarchy to a more appropriate level to make ourselves approachable,” Ambassador Sullenberger said. “I would literally say to my flight crew: My first officer and I are locked in this cockpit, and we cannot hear, feel, or smell anything going on in the rest of the airplane. You need to be our eyes and ears.”

The second-guessing
After Flight 1549, Ambassador Sullenberger and FO Skiles underwent a sixteen-month National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) investigation. They were interviewed and re-interviewed, as were other members of the crew, air traffic controllers, and other involved parties. The implication was that Ambassador Sullenberger might have made the wrong decision by opting for the river landing. The NTSB conducted simulations showing that landings at La Guardia or Teterboro might have been possible.

“Their job was to literally scrutinize every thought I had, every choice I made, every syllable I uttered, every action I took,” he explained, but Ambassador Sullenberger remained steadfast. He did not believe then, nor today, that landing at those airports was a viable option.

The second-guessing was challenging, but Ambassador Sullenberger approached the inquiry with complete transparency. After the ordeal was over, FO Skiles asked him, given a chance to redo it, if he would approach the investigation differently. Ambassador Sully told him no, he would do it all exactly the same way: “Because it’s important, because that’s how we learn.”

Technology
Dr. Tornetta noted that orthopaedic surgery, like air travel, was undergoing a technological revolution. He asked for Ambassador Sullenberger’s perspective on the balance between reliance on technology and reliance on oneself. Ambassador Sullenberger acknowledged the value of technology but asserted that humans have to be in charge.

“You need to learn every bit about how it works—everything about what it’s supposed to do and what it’s not supposed to do—which is challenging,” Ambassador Sullenberger said. “People must be the absolute masters of the machine.”

Josh Baxt is a freelance writer for AAOS Now.