Flight 1549 departed LaGuardia at 1503 local time (2003 GMT), after a delay of 18 minutes, the airline said. Pilot Chesley ‘Sully’ Sullenberger of US Airways reported a double bird strike shortly after takeout destroying both engines. Sullenberger managed to land the plane without incident in the Hudson River and all 155 people on board lived. It was an amazing feat of heroism, but it was no miracle.

Sullenberger started his career at the U.S. Air Force Academy in Colorado Springs, and he flew F-4s for seven years, before joining US Airways in 1980.

Along with his job as a pilot, Chesley Sullenberger is a visiting scholar at the University of California at Berkeley’s Center for Catastrophic Risk Management. He also works as an accident investigator and founded a company focused on helping businesses improve safety.

Experience and knowledge of how to deal with a dire situation provided Sullenberger the tools he needed to safely land the plane. God had nothing to do with Sullenberger landing the plane safely, or the fact no one died, yet people seem determined to give God credit.

New York Senator Charles Schumer

It was a modern-day miracle that no one had been killed….He saw what was happening, gained a low altitude, turned the plane in the right direction, found the Hudson River and made sure it wasn’t a nose-first landing but rather flat….And that’s probably what saved everybody’s life, thank God.

Eyewitness Adam Weiner

It seemed like the plane was really in control as it came into the river. It was almost as if the river was like the runway. It was approaching it like it was a runway until it hit the water, and then you didn’t know what to expect. Thank God it stayed in one piece and just slid along its belly.

One of the Passengers during interview

Thank God, and thank the pilot!

New York Mayor Bloomberg

It’s a day to thank God and have a smile on our faces.

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I know it is human nature to look to God during difficult times and thank God after a ‘miracle’, but believing God had a hand in this plane crash is absurd. I am sure the families of people who died in similar aviation disasters were not thanking God when their loved one perished.

— In 1992, 27 people died when a US Air Fokker F28 toppled into the river at the end of the runway after struggling to take off because of ice on the wings. The water was only five feet deep but the fuselage broke up and turned upside down.

— In 1989, a US Air flight bound for Charlotte, North Carolina, the same destination as the aircraft in yesterday’s crash, rolled into the East River after aborting take-off. Three people died.

— In 1959, an American Airlines aircraft crashed on approach into the East River, killing 65 of the 73 people on board.

The rationalization God spared certain people and was unable to save others, or had a different ‘plan’ for those who died is sheer lunacy. God doesn’t have any more of a ‘plan’ for you, or me, or anyone else for that matter than God does for a slug in the grass. I would be more inclined to pray to a statue of Pilot Chesley ‘Sully’ Sullenberger than I would God, because apparently when Sullenberger isn’t involved in the flight more people die.

Which side was God on when Ethiopian Airlines Flight 961 crashed into the water after being hijacked, the terrorists who thanked God for their success, the victims who died senselessly, or the people who survived?

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