Captain 'Sully' Speaks Out on Potomac Plane Crash

Chesley "Sully" Sullenberger III says he is "devastated" by the Potomac plane crash, the first fatal commercial plane crash in the US in almost 16 years. He says it shows "how vigilant we have to be." Reagan National Airport is a challenging place to fly into, the former American Airlines captain, famed for the Miracle on the Hudson landing in 2009, tells the New York Times. It was built in the 1930s and "hasn't changed much since then," he says. "Of course, we've added technology to it. But a lot of the technology is old."

• Pilots require unique training to "operate there safely because of the short runways, because of the proximity of other airports and because of the traffic level; it's a high-traffic, high-density area," Sullenberger tells Good Morning America, per People. "And lots of different kinds of traffic that's mixed together."
• Sullenberger says the nighttime descent could have made it harder for American Eagle Flight 5342 to avoid the military helicopter. "Nighttime always makes things different about seeing other aircraft—basically all you can do is see the lights on them," he tells the Times. "You have to try to figure out: Are they above you or below you? Or how far away? Or which direction are they headed? Everything is harder at night."

• Sullenberger says the waters of the Potomac River "might have made it a little bit harder to see," adding: "But that's supposition. We don't know."
• Sullenberger stresses that this remains an "exceptionally safe" period in aviation, but a lot of people have to work hard to keep it that way. "We have to realize how many things have to go right every day for us to have this now ultra-safe transportation industry," he says. "It's important to know that given enough time, given enough flights, given enough flight hours, eventually whatever can happen will happen, unless we work very hard to prevent every incident from turning into an accident.
• He says he hopes flight recorders provide more insight. "I'm just devastated by this," he says. "We have the obligation to learn from every failure and improve."

(More Potomac plane crash stories.)