Great recreation of the 2009 Miracle on the Hudson.

Rating: Null/10 (28 December 2016)

We saw this at home on DVD from Netflix. Plain DVD, no extras.
I remember the original incident clearly and it doesn't seem like almost 8 years ago. It only seems like 2 or 3 years ago, when 'Sully' in command of his plane lost both engines from bird collisions shortly after takeoff and had only a few seconds to decide to try to return to the airport or to try to make a safe landing on the Hudson River in NYC harbor.
Sully was an experienced pilot of 42 years, a cool head when things go wrong, just what you need in that situation. After barely 35 seconds of deliberation and finding alternate landing strips he judged that he did not have enough altitude and air speed to glide to an airport. He chose to land on the water.
Directed by Clint Eastwood, the fine cast features Tom Hanks, well- chosen to play Chesley 'Sully' Sullenberger, and Aaron Eckhart playing his co-pilot, Jeff Skiles. Yes the movie does include a recreation of the landing in the water, the subsequent evacuation personally managed by Sully, and the rescue by harbor boats and helicopters. But we all knew that, more importantly the movie covers what we never had a chance to know.
It deals with the FAA hearings and what seemed like an attempt to place the blame on pilot error, that Sully in fact could have and should have returned to one of the two landing strip possibilities rather than landing in the Hudson. The FAA had engineering calculations and flight simulator runs with real pilots that showed he could have landed safely.
All in all a fine, worthwhile movie that pays proper tribute to the right pilot in that particular situation to assure the survival of all 155 aboard.
(Side note: Anna Gunn was one of the FAA officials at the hearings but I could only look at her and think of Walter White's wife in 'Breaking Bad.')
SPOILERS: At the hearing Sully spoke up, he couldn't believe the FAA investigators failed to consider the human element, the time it took after the bird strikes to size up the options and choose one. After all the pilots who, in the simulator, made safe landings had as many as 17 practice runs first. Then they added 35 seconds between the bird hits and the decisions to go back to either Laguardia or to Teterboro. Each time they crash landed short of the runways, proving Sully had made the only decision that would have saved the lives of the people onboard.