Chesley Sullenberger quotes on aviation

After high school in 1969, I was appointed to the Air Force Academy. In ’73, I studied for my postgraduate degree and became a USAF pilot in 1974. After my discharge in 1980, I became a commercial pilot and flew my first airline flight at Pacific Southwest Airlines in 1980.

I’m less shy now than I was as a kid. After Flight 1549, my family and I had to become public figures and more complete versions of ourselves. I had to teach myself to become an effective public speaker.

My father volunteered in early 1941, before Pearl Harbor, and became an officer in the U.S. Navy. As I was growing up, he taught me the responsibility of command: A leader is ultimately responsible for every aspect of the welfare of people under his or her care. That was a deeply felt obligation in his generation.

If you take one of the first flights out in the morning, typically the airplane and the crew have arrived the night before. When you’re not waiting on an inbound flight, there are fewer delays.

I had never been so challenged in an airplane that I doubted the outcome.

Every day we wake up, we have an opportunity to do some good, but there’s so much bad that you have to navigate to get to the good.

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.

There’s simply no substitute for experience in terms of aviation safety.

Chesley Sullenberger