Highest Duty: My Search for What Really Matters by Capt. Chesley "Sully" Sullenberger

I enjoyed reading this memoir of Chesley "Sully" Sullenberger, who captained Flight 1549 on January 15, 2009.  The now famed flight struck birds, which damaged the engines and led Sully and his crew to guide the plane safely into the Hudson River.  Everyone on board survived.  The incident made him famous and was major news.

The book details his early life, love of flying, and how that upbringing readied him for a career as a pilot.  Sully developed a fascination with planes as a kid, which carried into the Air Force, where he flew fighter planes.  Overall, he lives with a clear sense of duty and preparedness.

Sully also describes his family life with wife Lorrie and adopted girls, Kate and Kelly.  They are a source of strength and support.  However, being a commercial pilot, he is often away from home, which makes being a father and husband difficult.

Moreover, he talks about the airline industry in the book.  He says that pilots, generally, are professionals who care about the safety of their passengers.  Other tidbits include:

• The industry has had several financial cutbacks over the years.  The pay is so low that a lot of pilots need second jobs.  Pensions have been slashed.
• Also, until the mid-1990s, most pilots came from the military.  Now, less than half do.
• Your experience and background as a pilot doesn't matter in airline industry.  Seniority does.  It decides your flying schedule, pay, and so on.
• Commercial pilots can go an entire career without facing an engine failure or other problem.  Although flying is routine, pilots must be ever ready to deal with an emergency.

Flight 1549 lasted only five minutes and eight seconds.  It hit birds almost immediately after taking off from LaGuardia.  That Sully and his co-pilot, Jeff Skiles, had to act so fast and under so much pressure and that they did so while bringing everyone to safety is remarkable.  As Sully summarized it:

Jeff and I had found ourselves in a crucible, a cacophony of automated warnings, synthetic voices, repetitive chimes, radio calls, traffic alerts, and ground proximity warnings.  Through it all, we had to maintain control of the airplane, analyze the situation, take step-by-btep action, and make critical decisions without being distracted or panicking.   It sounded as if our world was ending, and yet our crew coordination was beautiful.