Four years ago, a hero pilot’s miracle landing on the Hudson River saved lives. This week, he met the children born to the passengers whose lives he'd saved.
Ten babies have been born to passengers who were aboard US Airways Flight 1549, the troubled plane that Capt. Chesley “Sully” Sullenberger safely landed on January 15, 2009 after a run-in with a flock of geese, the New York Daily News reported.
On Tuesday, Katie Couric hosted a touching reunion between the kids and 61-year-old Sullenberger, who saved 155 passengers that day.
“These are special, special kids. Kids that maybe wouldn’t have been born otherwise. It makes it all very real,” Sullenberger said on “Katie.”
One boy -- Hudson -- was named after the landing, and coincidentally, born three years to the day of the event, according to the Daily Mail.
The parents of a baby girl, Elena, told Couric and the audience that the crash made them sure of their relationship, which hadn’t led to marriage yet.
“We had gone to New York for a vacation, when the plane crashed I just knew that he was the one I needed to be with and when he was in the hospital, I think he knew that he needed to pop the question,” Karin Rooney said on the show.
The day of the crash, the plane -- manned by former fighter pilot Sullenberger -- had just left LaGuardia Airport in Queens, New York, when it hit a flock of geese, the Daily News reported.
The power went out, but he successfully steered into a perfect water landing, gaining him praise for his take-charge attitude in a stressful situation.
According to an excerpt on Katie Couric's website, people have written Sullenberger from across the world, thanking him for saving so many lives.
"There's not another person in the world," wrote Theresa Hunsicker, "that could have given me that assurance."
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