the true story that inspired the film with Tom Hanks

[Mis à jour le 6 mars 2023 à 20h30] The film Sully is broadcast on France 3 this Monday, March 6, 2023. Directed by Clint Eastwood, the feature film worn by Tom Hanks looks back on the true story of Chesley Sullenberger, nicknamed “Sully”. In 2009, this pilot managed to land the Airbus A320 in the Hudson, near New York. The aircraft was damaged by a double bird strike, which rendered the aircraft’s two turbojet engines completely unusable. The 160 people on board escaped unscathed.

Today, the real “Sully” is 72 years old. Chesley Sullenberger is enjoying his retirement, taken a year after the incident. Since then, the former pilot has occasionally worked as a visiting professor at the Center for Disaster Management at the University of California, Berkeley. The one who was later nicknamed “the hero of the Hudson” also officiates as an expert on aviation-related subjects for the CBS channel. We could also see it in 2017 in the film Very Bad Dads 2, in which he appears in his own role. In the movie Sully by Clint Eastwood, Chesley Sullenberg also makes a cameo, in his own role

Synopsis – Chesley “Sully” Sullenberger is originally an ordinary man, a simple air pilot, who by the stroke of fate, becomes the American hero par excellence. Clint Eastwood looks at Sully who saved the passengers of an Airbus A320 that was going straight to the crash. During a routine flight, birds irreparably damage the jet engines of the plane as it prepares to fly over New York. No question of thinking too long otherwise everyone will perish. Chesley “Sully” Sullenberger at the controls of the Airbus, decides to attempt a landing maneuver and aims for the Hudson River. Without an engine, the plane still flies, like a glider. And only the expertise and coolness of the seasoned pilot allows everyone to land on the water after the biggest scare of their lives.