Chesley "Sully" Sullenberger, the pilot who saved 155 passengers aboard a distressed US Airways flight in 2009 in what has been dubbed the "Miracle on the Hudson," cautioned that it was still too early to know what caused a deadly mid-air collision Wednesday night near Washington, D.C.
An American Airlines regional jet en route to D.C. from Wichita, KS, collided with a U.S. Army Black Hawk helicopter around 9 p.m. Wednesday. Sixty-four people were on board the plane, and three were onboard the helicopter. Authorities said that no survivors were expected.
As the recovery mission continued Thursday morning in the Potomac River near Reagan International Airport, Sullenberger appeared with Willie Geist on MSNBC.
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"It's early. We really don't know much yet," Sullenberger said. "What is apparent to me at this point is that one of the many things that will be considered is the fact that the airplane used a very common technique, when it's possible and the visibility is good enough: visual separation.
"And that transfers the separation responsibility from the air traffic controller to the pilot who has said that they have the aircraft in sight, that it's the right airplane that they're supposed to be looking at, and that they're going to maintain their own separation from it. Obviously, that separation, at some point, was lost. So that clearly is going to be something that's going to be looked at, along with perhaps hundreds or thousands of other facts and contributing factors."
