Highest Duty_ My Search for What Really Matters - Chesley B. Sullenberger [115]
After Jeff and I heard the recording for the first time with the NTSB investigators, we excused ourselves to go to the men’s room. We would have to listen to the tape several more times on this day, but I think we both wanted a break before we did that.
As we walked down the hallway of this old government office building, I turned to Jeff and asked, “What did you think?”
Before he could answer, I felt a need to say something. “I’ll tell you what I think,” I told him. “I’m so proud of you. Within seconds of me calling for the checklist, you had it out, you found the right page, you had begun reading it. And you were right there with me, step-by-step, challenge-and-response, through all of those distractions. We did this together.”
In the media, I’d gotten most of the credit for Flight 1549. “I don’t care what anybody says,” I told Jeff. “We were a team.”
He looked at me, and I saw tears in his eyes. “Thank you,” he said. I was a bit choked up myself. We hugged, then stood together for a moment in that hallway, not saying anything. We were two men who’d been through something extraordinary together and couldn’t find the words to fully capture it.
Eventually, we made our way back to the CVR lab, where we joined the investigators and listened to the cockpit recording again and again.
WHEN KELLY was very young, she once asked me, “What’s the best job in the world?”
My answer to her was this: “It’s the job you would do even if you didn’t have to.” It’s so important for people to find jobs suited to their strengths and their passions. People who love their jobs work more diligently at them. They become more adept at the intricacies of their duties. They serve the world well.
On January 14, 2009, my life had been a series of thoughtful opportunities to be the best pilot, leader, and teammate I could be. I was an anonymous, regular guy—a husband, a father, a US Airways pilot. On January 15, circumstances changed everything, a reminder that none of us ever knows what tomorrow will bring.
I flew thousands of flights in the last forty-two years, but my entire career is now being judged by how I performed on one of them. This has been a reminder to me: We need to try to do the right thing every time, to perform at our best, because we never know which moment in our lives we’ll be judged on.
I’ve told Kate and Kelly that each of us has the responsibility to prepare ourselves well. I want them to invest in themselves, to never stop learning, either professionally or personally. At the end of their lives, like all of us, I expect they might ask themselves a simple question: Did I make a difference? My wish for them is that the answer to that question will be yes.
As for myself, I look back at everything and continue to feel lucky. I found my passion very early. At five years old, I knew I would spend my life flying. At sixteen, I was already in the sky alone, practicing and practicing, circling happily above Mr. Cook’s grass strip.
In the years that followed, my romance with flying helped sustain me. At twenty-four, I was a fighter pilot, learning that I had to pay the closest attention to everything, because life and death could be separated by seconds and by feet. By fifty-seven, I was a gray-haired man with my hands on the controls of an Airbus A320 over Manhattan, using a lifetime of knowledge to find a way to safety.
Through it all, my love of flying has never wavered. I’m still that eleven-year-old boy with his face pressed against the window of the Convair 440, ready to take my first ride out of Dallas on an airplane. I’m still that earnest teen who flew low over our house on Hanna Drive, waving to my mom and sister on the ground. I’m still the serious young Air Force cadet, in awe of all the fighter pilots who came before me and showed me the way.
Just as I completely love Lorrie, Kate, and Kelly, I will