National And World News

NEW YORK (CBS) ― The wife of the pilot who safely landed a crippled jetliner in the Hudson River says her husband is a "a pilot's pilot" who "loves the art of the airplane."

Lorrie Sullenberger also says it's "a little weird" to hear the country calling him a hero.

Sullenberger and her two daughters spoke outside their California home Friday morning a day after pilot Chesley "Sully" Sullenberger III guided a US Airways jetliner to a safe landing in New York.

She said when her two daughters went to sleep Thursday night, "I could hear them talking, `Is this weird or what?"'

"We have been asked not to say anything by US Air, so we're not going to make any statements about much, but we would like to say that we are very grateful that everyone is off the airplane safely and that is really what my husband asked me to convey to everyone," Sullenberger said. "And of course we are very proud of dad. And very shocked."

President George W. Bush called the pilot to thank him for saving the lives of the passengers.

White House press secretary Dana Perino says Bush effusively praised Sullenberger for his skill in bringing the plane to an emergency landing Thursday in the Hudson River near New York's LaGuardia Airport.

She said Bush also commended Sullenberger, a onetime Air Force pilot, for his bravery and heroic efforts.

Sullenberger said her husband remained on the East Coast and the family had not yet decided whether to fly back to visit him.

Chesley "Sully" Sullenberger has flown for US Airways since 1980. He flew F-4 fighter jets with the Air Force in the 1970s. He then served on a board that investigated aircraft accidents and participated later in several National Transportation Safety Board investigations.

Passenger David Sanderson told CBS Evening News anchor Katie Couric the pilots deserve all the credit for saving the passengers.

"When I was watching how it was coming down, there was no way he could have landed on the ground," Sanderson said from his New Jersey hospital bed. "He did the right thing, so I give him all the credit. It was pretty much controlled chaos on the plane."

CBS News correspondent Bob Orr said the incident "has all the earmarks of being a real heroic job by the pilots."

"You have to understand you have compromised engines, or no engines, no altitude, no speed and no room," he said "If you look at the Hudson River, down on a boat, it looks pretty wide. When you're in the air and you see it, it's a very closed area and you have hit that ribbon of water."

When he's not flying planes, Sullenberger is president of Safety Reliability Methods, a California firm that uses "the ultra-safe world of commercial aviation" as a base for safety consulting in other fields, according to the firm's Web site.

Sullenberger's mailbox at the firm was full on Thursday. A group of fans sprang up on Facebook within hours of the emergency landing.

"OMG, I am terrified of flying but I would be happy to be a passenger on one of your aircraft!!" Melanie Wills in Bristol wrote on the wall of "Fans of Sully Sullenberger." "You have saved a lot of people's lives and are a true hero!!"

The pilot "did a masterful job of landing the plane in the river and then making sure that everybody got out," Mayor Michael Bloomberg said. "He walked the plane twice after everybody else was off, and tried to verify that there was nobody else on board, and he assures us there was not."

"He was the last one up the aisle and he made sure that there was nobody behind him."

Gov. David Paterson pronounced it a "miracle on the Hudson."

Sullenberger's co-pilot was Jeff Skiles, 49, of Oregon, Wis., a 23-year US Airways veteran.

"He was OK," said his wife, Barbara. "He was relieved that everybody got off."

She said she and her husband couldn't remember an accident as serious as this in his career.

US Airways Flight 1549 took off at 3:26 p.m. from LaGuardia Airport in New York City. Less than a minute later, Sullenberger reported a "double bird strike" and said he needed to return to LaGuardia. Sullenberger was told to divert to an airport in nearby Teterboro, N.J.

Sullenberger calculated that the jet could not make it to Teterboro and prepared for the emergency landing on the Hudson instead. The plane splashed into the water off roughly 48th Street in midtown Manhattan - one of the busiest and most closely watched stretches of the river, CBS station WCBS-TV reported.

After staying afloat on the wings of the aircraft for several minutes, all 155 passengers were transported to land safely by ferries and coast guard rescue vessels.

Meanwhile, the aircraft rapidly sank and floated downstream. Tugboats were able to successfully tow it to a dock in Manhattan.

(© 2009 CBS Broadcasting Inc. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. The Associated Press contributed to this report.)

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