‘Sully’ Movie Gets Bad Review from Annapolis NTSB Member

ANNAPOLIS, MD — The movie “Sully,” about the miraculous landing of US Airways Flight 1549 on the Hudson River in New York, has earned praise from movie critics and audiences since it was released in early September. What’s not to like about the skillful piloting by Capt. Chesley Burnett "Sully" Sullenberger, or America’s favorite actor, Tom Hanks, who portrays the dauntless pilot?

Members of the National Transportation Safety Board — including Kitty Higgins of Annapolis — have given the movie’s portrayal of the aftermath to the water landing and Sully’s decisions a thumbs-down.

"Nobody ever suggested it was pilot error," Higgins said. "It's just not the case. … The question was what was involved in getting it to safely land."

Now retired pilot Sullenberger was thrust into the international spotlight following the dramatic water landing on January 15, 2009, when birds destroyed both plane engines. All 155 people on board the flight survived and none were seriously injured. The incredible story about the “Miracle on the Hudson” and the events that triggered the landing are brought to life through the film directed by Clint Eastwood.

Most movie-goers know that Sully landed the plane largely intact on the river, and ferry boats from New York and New Jersey raced to the scene to pluck the passengers out of the water and off the wings of the sinking plane.

But the film focuses on NTSB hearings that looked at whether Sully could have returned to LaGuardia Airport or landed at nearby Teeterboro, NJ. The ads bill the movie as the untold story behind the flight; the narrative is Sully rebuffing questions by investigators and flight simulators.

Eastwood’s “Sully” incorrectly portrays the investigation, Higgins tells the Capital-Gazette. "There was no story behind the story," she said.

A short summary by Warner Brothers sets up the account in these terms: “Even as Sully was being heralded by the public and the media for his unprecedented feat of aviation skill, an investigation was unfolding that threatened to destroy his reputation and his career.”

In a publicity video for the movie, Eastwood said that reading the script was when he learned “the investigative board was trying to paint the picture that he (Sullenberger) had done the wrong thing. They were kind of railroading him into ‘it was his fault.”’

That just isn’t the case say Higgins and other NTSB board members and investigators.

Robert Benzon, who led the NTSB investigation, says it was his job to review everything — did the plane really lose all power, when had Sully and his first officer last had an alcoholic drink, could the plane have made it to an airport — and make safety recommendations based on all the information gathered.

“These guys were already national heroes,” Benzon told CBS News. “We weren’t out to embarrass anybody at all.”

An early draft of the script included the names of the actual NTSB officials, but Sullenberger requested they be taken out, Hanks told the Associated Press. The reason? Sully didn’t see them as prosecutors, but as people doing an important job, the actor said.

Higgins served on the board from 2006 to almost 2010, and she worries the movie’s slant on the crash investigation will make pilots less willing to share all the facts with the agency in the future.

"(The movie) just puts the NTSB looking like the bad guys, when in fact their whole job is to figure it all out and put together recommendations so this kind of thing doesn't happen again," Higgins said.

Since the famous landing, Sullenberger, a native Texan who lives in the San Francison area and former U.S. Air Force fighter pilot, shared his story through his memoir, "Highest Duty: My Search for What Really Matters” co-authored by Jeffrey Zaslow. According to his website, Sullenberger is an international lecturer, author and consultant.

»Photo of Chesley “Sully” Sullenberger courtesy Jennifer Vigil/ Patch archive; "Sully" trailer from Warner Brothers