story . i m anderson cooper. last week at tokyo s haneda airport, a jal airbus collided with a smaller aircraft. five crew members on the coast guard plane died. but amazingly, all 379 people on the airbus survived. they were safely evacuated before the plane was engulfed in flames. investigation into what happened is still under way. it got us thinking about that miraculous story of survival that happened 15 years ago this month. us airways flight 1549 took off from new york s laguardia airport heading to charlotte, north carolina. there were 150 passengers onboard and 5 crew members, including the pilot, captain chesley sully sullenberger. it should have been a quick two-hour flight. but soon after takeoff the plane collided with a flock of geese. both engines went out and the plane headed down. captain sullenberger acted quickly, heading towards the hudson river for an emergency landing. his decisiveness saved the lives of all 159 people onboard. but this potential trage
deep depression he was in. yeahah. my dad w was not a p pilot, but alwaways loved a airplanes. and i think bebecause we h had aviationon magazineses and book arouound, it wasas just obvivio. whahat i alwaysys tell peopos had one peperson not m made it of f flight 154949, sully woulu hahave been ththe same manan. ththat would h have destroroyed havingng just one e person diei thatat airplane.e. nonobody wantsts to be on n tha airplanene and have e that exexperience. it s not l like you wowon a rac you wowon somethining that s j purerely a celebebration. there is a a traumaticic part t. you need to be respectful of that. mark, i m going to just have to interrupt you here for a moment because wouldn t you know, we ve got some breaking news that s coming in to us right now. a plane has apparently gone down in n the hudsonon.. this is flflight 1549.9.
what t s trauma f for one pe is notot necessaririly a traumu event fofor another person. it s very individually defined. what traumatic events really are, are events that challenge corere beliefs. like how m much controrol do i over my y life? how predictable is my life? how fair is life? i d been flying airplanes for 42 years. i had 20,000 hours in the air. and all l during thahat time, i never beenen so challelenged in airplanene.. i knknew immediaiately that t ts going to b be differenent. thisis was goingng to be thehe day y of my lifefe. this i is a blowupup of a photot wawas taken duduring the r resc. i it was inteteresting acact prpreparing fofor you comiming . i pulled o out a lot o of the o memomorabilia anand letters s a newspaper r clippings.s. and d it was a l little bit t -