Ahead of ‘Miracle on the Hudson’ anniversary, pilots’ union warns against flight deck cutbacks

The world’s biggest pilots’ trade union is again warning airlines and regulators against thinning out flight crews, pointing to the heroic efforts of pilots involved in the life-saving landing of a damaged US Airways aircraft in the Hudson River in 2009. The Air Line Pilots Association, Int’l (ALPA) said the incident, which was dramatised in the 2016 Clint Eastwood-Tom Hanks film ‘Sully: Miracle on the Hudson’, showed the need to retain “at least two fully qualified, highly trained, and well-rested pilots are on the flight deck”. On January 15, 2009, Captain Chesley ‘Sully’ Sullenberger and First Officer Jeffrey Skiles saved