Free Republic

Capt. Chesley Sully Sullenberger made it his life's mission to protect lives because he couldn't save his father from suicide, according to the hero pilot's blockbuster new book. "One of the reasons I think I've placed such a high value on life is that my father took his," Sullenberger reveals in the memoir, a copy of which the New York Daily News obtained ahead of the tome's October release. Sullenberger reveals that his father, a dentist from Texas, battled depression and shot himself in 1995 at age 78 in the book "Highest Duty: My Search for What Really Matters." "I'm...

Yesterday afternoon, Anthony Quintano was alerted by a friend that U.S. Airways Flight 1549 was being towed down New Jersey’s Route 46 towards Teteboro Airport where it will be examined in detail. ... In addition, the co-founder, Dean Thompson, of the 9/11 Flight Crew Memorial passed on eleven great photos of Flight 1549 being towed through narrow city streets in New Jersey as the sun set.

A banker on a business trip in New York City, Fred Berretta had just checked into his hotel room. He had about 20 minutes down time before he had to meet his colleagues. For some reason he decided to clean out his briefcase, something he hadn't done in a long time. As he emptied it out, he came across a booklet he had stuffed into a pocket years ago on praying the Chaplet of The Divine Mercy. He recalls having prayed it a few times years ago. But by Jan. 15, 2009, it was a good intention mislaid —...

Two days before US Airways Flight 1549 crashed into the Hudson River, passengers on the same route and same aircraft say they heard a series of loud bangs and the flight crew told them they could have to make an emergency landing, CNN has learned. Steve Jeffrey of Charlotte, North Carolina, told CNN he was flying in first class Tuesday when, about 20 minutes into the flight, "it sounded like the wing was just snapping off." "The red lights started going on. A little pandemonium was going on," Jeffrey recalled. He said the incident occurred over Newark, New Jersey, soon...