Good morning all. Last night we watched the movie Sully. If you have not seen it, I highly recommend it. Just to give you a brief overview, on January 15, 2009, US Air Flight 1549 took off from New York’s La Guardia Airport headed to Charlotte, North Carolina. The plane was piloted by Captain Sullenburger (Sully) and first officer Zaslow. But within minutes of taking off, they had a bird strike which severely damaged both engines. They were only at 2800 feet over Manhattan. Control tower was telling  them to return to La Guardia, but Sully thought he would not make it. Then the tower told him to go to Newark airport, Teterboro airport all within a few miles of La Guardia, but Sully refused and said he was going to land on the Hudson river. He did. There were 155 people on board including the crew and all of them survived. Some people had minor injuries. Within 24 minutes of landing on the Hudson, everyone was rescued by New York police and ferries. The movie starts with the National Transportation Safety Board investigating the incident. They keep telling Sully that based on computer simulations he would have made it back to either La Guardia or Teterboro. Airbus, the maker of the airplane also confirmed that computer simulation showed that they would have made it back to an airport instead of landing in the water. I don’t want to give the whole story away in case you want to see the movie. Being a private pilot myself, I practiced simulated engine out and how to land the airplane. But no matter how many times you train for this, when it actually happens, you have to go with your gut instinct. Besides Sully had to worry about 154 people on board as well as millions of people living in Manhattan. So here is what I learned. No matter how many times you practice something, when it happens for real, you have to go with your gut instinct. If the information you have is incomplete, you have to make the best decision based on what you have and then believe in it and be prepared to defend it. Finally machines can predict an outcome, but human factor can never be simulated.