Capt Sully – famed for heroic NYC river landing – reveals crucial factor in DC jet crash & says ‘everything is harder’ THE pilot famed for his heroic plane landing on a New York river has suggested a crucial complication could have been a factor in the American Airlines jet crash.
The former pilot, renowned for safely landing a passenger plane on the Hudson River in 2009, said "everything is harder" at night.
All 64 people on board the plane were killed when it collided with a helicopter over Washington DC's Potomac River on Wednesday night.
Less than 30 seconds before the crash, one controller asked the helicopter if it could see the plane.
Captain Chesley 'Sully' Sullenberger said visibility could have been hampered as there would have been "fewer ground lights visible over the water than over land at night".
