This Wasn't a Landing, This Was a Die Hard Movie

Using tracking data from Flightaware.com and Google Maps, this Flickr user has already plotted the exact course of the USAir flight that landed in the Hudson today. (Click on the map for full size.)

This isn't a commercial pilot. This isn't just a regular hero. This is John McClane at the end of a Die Hard movie, pulling off a ludicrous, insanely impossible move that people in the real world wouldn't even dream up, much less accomplish.

The audience in a test screening would never believe it. They'd be looking for the CGI work at the edges and knowingly listening for Wilhelm Screams in the soundtrack.

Wow. Unreal.

Look at that flight path, and think of what could have happened today if US Airways pilot Chesley Sullenberger hadn't been at the controls. Words fail in admiration.

Long, sincere applause, Chesley Sullenberger.

"Get these motherf***ing geese off my motherf***ing plane," you said.

And you actually did.

I hope people name their sons "Chesley Sullenberger." I hope people name their daughters "Chesley Sullenberger." "Chesley Sullenberger" should be a name so common in twenty years that nobody even bats an eye when you say "Chesley Sullenberger."

Still, if Chesley Sullenberger is being interviewed, and Alan Rickman suddenly shoots up out of the water, trying to take one last shot before he finally dies... don't say you weren't warned.

Although I'm sure Chesley Sullenberger would just whip the little wings off his chest, fling them like a ninja star across the room with a deft flick of the wrist, and impale the bad guy hard enough that he falls back into the Hudson.