'Sully' Sullenberger Meets Grateful Passengers
Listen to Emma Sophina's song, "Send Another Prayer."
Feb. 9, 2009— -- Passengers from the "Miracle on the Hudson" emergency landing last month poured onto the set of "Good Morning America" today to personally thank Capt. Chesley "Sully" Sullenberger III and his crew for saving 155 lives.
One passenger, Australian singer Emma Sophina composed a thank-you song to Sullenberg called "Send Another Prayer." Click here to listen to "Send Another Prayer."
The unflappable pilot also led his five-person crew to City Hall where Mayor Michael Bloomberg gave them symbolic keys to the city.
"Thank you for sparing our city and so many families from an awful tragedy," they mayor said. Bloomberg says the day "could have been one of our most tragic, but became one of our most triumphant."
The heartfelt thanks from the passengers on "GMA" were often said through tears.
"I thought I was going to lose my wife and never get to see my children. I thank you, all of you, from the bottom of my heart," a choked-up Larry Snodgrass told the captain.
Passenger David Sontag said he wrote a letter to each crew member of US Airways flight 1549. He read part of them on the air: "I wish for you the old Irish saying, 'May the wind always be at your back and may God hold you safely in his hands.'"
Vallee Collins said on the way down, she texted her husband to say, "My flight is crashing." The woman said she expected the flight to end "tragically" and didn't want her husband to be wondering whether she was on that plane or not.
"I wanted him to get to the business of telling our children and moving on," Collins said, delighted to be smiling and talking to the crew on "GMA" instead.
Many of the 27 passengers who appeared on "GMA" shook hands with Sullenberger and many gave him a hug.
"Good to see you, thanks for coming," Sullenberger said as he greeted each. "Holding up OK? Wild ride," he asked one.
Sullenberger has recounted in recent days how he simultaneously battled to keep the wings perfectly even, keep the rate of descent "survivable" and keep the plane's nose slightly up.
At the same time, the flight attendants tried to keep the passengers, many of whom were staring transfixed out the window at the coming collision or were trying to text friends or family members, in a proper position to absorb the crash.
The attendants kept up a chant as the plane plummeted toward the Hudson: "Brace, brace, heads down, stay down." It was a sound that Sullenberger could hear in the cockpit, reassuring the captain that his crew was acting like pros and ready for the next phase of the emergency.
Sullenberger and his crew splashed down on a frigid Jan. 15 in a spectacular landing and rescue that quickly became dubbed "the miracle on the Hudson." Both engines were knocked out when the plane "was pelted by many large birds," as Sullenberger described it.
Many of the passengers scrambled out onto the plane's wings as river ferries converged to take them to safety.
