Inside The Mind Of A "Hero"

Yer not gonna believe this but I was thinkin' the same thing.. except fer the birds part (I'm not totally stupid, ya know! lol!) I think he isn't a hero I think he was saving his own buttocks

I do agree that yes I am sure he was thinking of his life as well. But his character was not seen in doing his job landing the plane. His heroism is magnified by him not leaving the plane until he had checked it "TWICE" before leaving the plane. Now this is where you come back and say. "He was not checking it for passangers, he just found a fast and easy way to get 150 laptops to sell on ebay." :) Tator Tots!

You are right..I'm sure he was double thinking of everything he knew of how to get out of this stupid predicament he was in, and thinking of his karma of having lives in his hands to save.He did a great job and would request him for any plane ride i ever take..lol.. curly fries..no I'll take onion rings

I've often thought the same thing, Sconi. We all have survival instincts, so we do everything possible to make the best of a bad situation. The pilot obviously wanted to preserve himself - the rest of the passengers were incidental! We've just had one of our soldiers awarded a Victoria Cross - he used his own body to distract enemy fire from wounded comrades. That takes a bit of hero action ...

Hey sconi! That's a cool way of "spinning" this story! So, you want to take it from the birds-eye view so to speak! Those poor birdies! I felt so sorry for them too! You didn't hear anyone saying that did you? Of course not! They just got sucked into the engines and all you heard was about the people having to go into the freezing cold water in that freezing cold air! Damn! No one thought about those poor birdies! Well I did! I also may never fly again because that's the airport that I fly from! Now I am even more scared to take a flight from Laguardia! It's so fun living in NY!

]Hi there, A very good point you raise. It indeed was an emergency plane landing in the Hudson River not a plane crash, however, I think many people consider it to be heroic because if I'm not mistaken an emergency landing like that has never been successful before such that all people on that plane walked away without any serious long-term injuries. I have responded to several of the flying plane crash discussions and I too called him a hero. I did not call him a hero because he saved 155 people's lives. I called him a hero because he was able to think well under pressure and to communicate well with his fellow copilot and his fellow crew members to get everyone off of the plane successfully. I cannot speak for other people but I called him a hero because he was able to successfully land the plane under extreme circumstances. You are absolutely correct in the assertion that we will never know if he was saying "Holy Crapola, this is bad I don't wanna die!" However, even if he was he still had the presence of mind to be able to act and react in such a way that he was able to get his butt out of that rather sticky situation as well as all those other people. I don't know about you, but he's the guy I want beside me when things get rough. I don't want someone standing there going "Oh My God!" I want somebody who's going too act and think later. Even if he was just trying to save his own bottom. I am OK with that, 'cause in the process of saving his butt he saved mine too. And you are absolutely right perhaps those birds are heroes as well. Perhaps the plane was never meant to make it to its destination, perhaps the birds and the pilot both changed the outcome of the lives of those 155 people. The truth of the matter is that neither one of us will know if that is true not but I believe that everything happens for a reason. Whatever that reason is those people on the plane were not meant to die that day. That's it and if story. And hold the fries for me on all the hungry, in fact them feeling rather ill, but and happy Mylotting!

that was a heroic deed.i think he would feel guilty for life,if he had not tried to save the passengers.his profession is a noble profession where he may have to lay down his life(hope this is a relevant response)

If you think only about your skin, you can always jump out of the plane and let it crushed. You can escape like captain from Titanic. He is the hero, even if doing only his job. He was the last one leaving the plane, making sure all passengers are safe. Safe landing is also giving him a lots of credentials... I think he runs into hero category.

Self serving or not, he's still a hero! Who the hell else is gonna land the damn plane?? There were probably a million things going through his mind at the time too. One of them of course being frantic strategizing on how best to save the situation; and I am pretty certain he was probably wondering where the hell the blonde Airhostess with the big boobs was too at one point 'cos if he's gonna die, he may as well get some along the way! And can I have a bucket of all three choices please? Is there any such thing as fried curly tots??

Curly fries....& leave some on the table at sonic in memory of the little bird heros.

Hey great discussion! I think I've change my mind twice while trying to write this response. I'm sure its not an uncommon thing for some 'heroes' to think that sort of thing I mean it all comes down to self preservation. maybe that why most of them don't think of themselves as heroes.

Because he did everything perfectly and according to the manual just like he was taught to do. I didn't think it made a difference what he was thinking he still saved over 150 lives and didn't panic, ultimately crashing into a major vicinity, thats why he's a hero in my eyes. He was said to of checked the plane twice and according to the passengers the plane was filling in the back of the plane pretty quickly I think he did car. The geese, hopefully they evolve to learn not to fly into the giant metal beast.

Who knows what was going through his mind? But he did the right thing under extreme pressure, so good for him! That's what heroes do...