Age, Biography, and Wiki
Chesley Burnett "Sully" Sullenberger III was born on January 23, 1951. He is an American retired aircraft pilot, diplomat, and aviation safety expert. Sullenberger is best known for his heroic landing of US Airways Flight 1549 on the Hudson River in 2009, ensuring the survival of all 155 people on board.
| Occupation | Activists |
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| Date of Birth | 23 January 1951 |
| Age | 74 Years |
| Birth Place | Denison, Texas, U.S. |
| Horoscope | Aquarius |
| Country | U.S |
Height, Weight & Measurements
There is limited public information available regarding Sully Sullenberger's height and weight. However, he is recognized globally for his accomplishments rather than his physical attributes.
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Dating & Relationship Status
Sully Sullenberger is married to Lorraine Sullenberger. However, detailed information about his personal life, including dates of marriage or children, is not widely documented.
His father was a descendant of Swiss-German immigrants named Sollenberger. He has one younger sister, Mary. The street on which he grew up was named after his mother's family. According to his sister, Sullenberger built model planes and aircraft carriers during his childhood; she says he became interested in flying after seeing military jets from an Air Force base near his house. He went to school in Denison and was consistently on the 99th percentile in every academic category.
Sullenberger attended the presidential inauguration on January 20, 2009, where he and his wife met President Obama. On January 22, 2009, he and the rest of the crew of Flight 1549 were awarded a Masters Medal by the Guild of Air Pilots and Air Navigators. A ceremony for Sullenberger was held on January 24, 2009, in Sullenberger's town of Danville, California, where he was presented with awards including Danville's "Key to the Town", and was named an honorary Danville police officer. While in the Tri-Valley, Sullenberger gave his first official interview to Jega Sanmugam of The Wildcat Tribune, the student newspaper of Dougherty Valley High School, which his daughter attended at the time. In a special February 2009 edition, the Tribune published "Heroism & Humility on the Hudson", covering Sullenberger and the Flight 1549 landing.
With coauthor Jeffrey Zaslow, Sullenberger wrote the 2009 bestselling memoir Highest Duty: My Search for What Really Matters. In the book, Sullenberger also discussed personal matters, including his father's suicide in 1995, the Sullenbergers' struggle with infertility, and their decision to adopt.
In 2019 Sullenberger said that Boeing 737 MAX crashes "are demonstrable evidence that our current system of aircraft design and certification has failed us. These accidents should never have happened." He sharply criticized Boeing and the Federal Aviation Administration, saying that the overly "cozy relationship" between the aviation industry and government was evident in March 2019 when Boeing CEO Dennis Muilenburg lobbied President Donald Trump to prevent the 737 MAX 8 from being grounded.
On December 7, 1995, Sullenberger's father died by suicide by gunshot shortly after he was released from the hospital following major surgery. He had been suffering from depression and a long and difficult convalescence. As a result of this, Sullenberger became a suicide prevention activist, having promoted National Suicide Prevention Week and National Suicide Prevention Lifeline.
In season five, episode seven of the NBC comedy Brooklyn Nine-Nine titled "Two Turkeys," (aired November 21, 2017) the character Jake Peralta's (portrayed by Andy Samberg) father Roger Peralta (portrayed by Bradley Whitford), a pilot, claims to have flown with Sullenberger. Later on, the character Amy Santiago's (portrayed by Melissa Fumero) father Victor Santiago (portrayed by Jimmy Smits) drunkenly tells a nurse that Roger Peralta taught Sullenberger how to fly.
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| Husband | Lorrie Henry (m. 1989) |
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Net Worth and Salary
As of 2025, Sully Sullenberger's net worth is estimated to be between $1.5 million and $2 million. His income comes from his long career as a commercial pilot, book deals, and his role as a safety expert. Despite his heroic actions and increased public recognition, his net worth remains relatively modest compared to other celebrities.
On February 24, 2009, Sullenberger testified before the U.S. House of Representatives Subcommittee on Aviation of the Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure that his salary had been cut by 40 percent, and that his pension, like most airline pensions, was terminated and replaced by a PBGC guarantee worth only pennies on the dollar. He cautioned that airlines were "under pressure to hire people with less experience. Their salaries are so low that people with greater experience will not take those jobs. We have some carriers that have hired some pilots with only a few hundred hours of experience. ... There's simply no substitute for experience in terms of aviation safety."
Career, Business, and Investments
- Aviation Career: Sullenberger spent nearly 50 years as a pilot, retiring from US Airways in 2010 after 30 years of service. His most notable achievement was the safe landing of US Airways Flight 1549 in 2009.
- Book Deals: He co-authored two books: Highest Duty: My Search for What Really Matters and Making a Difference: Stories of Vision and Courage from America's Leaders. These books contributed to his income and public profile.
- Aviation Safety: Sullenberger is a strong advocate for aviation safety, serving as a co-chair for the Experimental Aircraft Association's Young Eagles program and testifying before Congress about aviation safety concerns.
- Diplomatic Career: In 2021, he was nominated as the U.S. representative to the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) with the rank of ambassador and served until July 2022.
At age 11, his IQ was deemed high enough that he was allowed to join Mensa International. In high school, he was the president of the Latin club, a first chair flutist, and an honor student. He was an active member of the Waples Memorial United Methodist Church. He graduated from Denison High School in 1969, near the top of his class of about 350. At 16, Sullenberger learned to fly in an Aeronca Champion 7DC at a private airstrip near his home. He said that the training he received from a local flight instructor influenced his aviation career.
Sullenberger worked for US Airways and its predecessor airlines from 1980 until 2010. (Pacific Southwest Airlines was acquired by US Air, later US Airways, in 1988.) He holds an airline transport pilot certificate for single and multi-engine airplanes, a commercial pilot license rating in gliders, and a flight instructor certificate for airplanes (single, multi-engine, and instrument) and gliders. In total, he has more than 50 years and 20,000 hours of flying experience. In 2007, he became the founder and CEO of Safety Reliability Methods, Inc. (SRM), a firm providing strategic and tactical guidance to enhance organizational safety, performance, and reliability. He has been involved in a number of accident investigations conducted by the USAF and the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB), such as Pacific Southwest Airlines Flight 1771 and USAir Flight 1493. He served as an instructor, Air Line Pilots Association local air safety chairman, accident investigator, and national technical committee member. His safety work for ALPA led to the development of a Federal Aviation Administration advisory circular. He was instrumental in developing and implementing the Crew Resource Management course that was used by US Airways, and he has taught the course to hundreds of airline crew members.
Social Network
Sully Sullenberger maintains a relatively low profile on social media platforms, focusing more on his professional roles and advocacy work rather than personal social media presence.
Sullenberger, described by friends as "shy and reticent", was noted for his poise and calm during the crisis; New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg dubbed him "Captain Cool". Nonetheless, Sullenberger suffered symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder in subsequent weeks, including sleeplessness and flashbacks. He said that the moments before the landing were "the worst sickening, pit-of-your-stomach, falling-through-the-floor feeling" that he had ever experienced. He also said, "One way of looking at this might be that for 42 years, I've been making small, regular deposits in this bank of experience, education and training. And on January 15, the balance was sufficient so that I could make a very large withdrawal."
San Ramon Valley Fire Protection District Chief Richard Price presented Captain Sullenberger with his district's highest award, the Medal of Valor, which had been given only a few times in the district's history. Sullenberger, Skiles, and Flight 1549's cabin crew—Doreen Welsh, Sheila Dail, and Donna Dent—were honored with a standing ovation during the Super Bowl XLIII pre-game ceremony on February 1, 2009. Sullenberger was awarded with honorary lifetime membership in the Seaplane Pilots Association. In 2009, Sullenberger was awarded the Founders' Medal by The Air League. Admirers of Sullenberger started a Facebook fan site that, as of late February 2009, had half a million members.
In late October 2018, Sullenberger wrote an op-ed in The Washington Post ahead of the 2018 mid-term elections, calling on Americans to vote "for leaders who are committed to the values that will unite and protect us," who have a "moral compass ... competence, integrity, and concern for the greater good." In a subsequent interview with Lawrence O'Donnell, Sullenberger elaborated his position, discussing his belief that voters should act as a check and balance in a partisan government. He also wrote that he has been a registered Republican for the majority of his adult life but has "always voted as an American".
Education
Details about Sully Sullenberger's educational background are limited, but his extensive experience in aviation and his role as a safety expert highlight his expertise in the field.
Sullenberger earned a Bachelor of Science degree in psychology and basic sciences from the United States Air Force Academy. He earned a master's degree in industrial-organizational psychology from Purdue University in 1973 and a Master of Public Administration from University of Northern Colorado in 1979.
Sullenberger was appointed to the United States Air Force Academy, entering with the Class of 1973 in June 1969. He was selected along with around a dozen other freshmen for a cadet glider program, and by the end of that year, he was an instructor pilot. When he graduated in 1973, he received the Outstanding Cadet in Airmanship award, as the class's "top flyer". Immediately following his graduation with a Bachelor of Science degree and his commissioning as an officer, the Air Force sent Sullenberger to Purdue University to pursue a master's degree prior to entering Undergraduate Pilot Training (UPT).
Following completion of his master's, he was assigned to UPT at Columbus AFB, Mississippi, flying the T-37 Tweet and T-38 Talon. After earning his wings in 1975 as a pilot, he completed replacement training in the F-4 Phantom II at Luke AFB, Arizona. This was followed by his assignment to the 493d Tactical Fighter Squadron of 48th Tactical Fighter Wing at RAF Lakenheath, United Kingdom, in the F-4D Phantom II.
On June 6, 2009, Sullenberger returned to Denison to participate in the town's D-Day celebration and to give the commencement address for his alma mater, marking the 40th anniversary of his graduation from the school.
The 2010 song "A Real Hero", by French electronica artist College and the band Electric Youth, is in part inspired by Captain Sullenberger and Flight 1549. Frontman Austin Garrick was inspired to write the song by his grandfather, whose reference to Sullenberger as "a real human being and a real hero" became the song's refrain.
