Capt. Sully, Who Saved 155 in ‘Miracle’ Plane Landing on the Water, Reveals Alzheimer’s Diagnosis | “It is my hope that by sharing this, other families living in the shadows with this disease will feel they too can step forward.”

Prayers for the sully family

An awful disease

Why do bad things happen to good people? I can list so many evil POSs who are filthy rich and live to be 100 whilst people like Robin Williams die young and are diagnosed with debilitating illnesses. 

NOOOOOOOOO


So sad. I am so sorry for him and his family. It is such a devastating disease.

Alzheimer’s really is such a devastating disease, but it is something to think outside yourself, and to decide with your family to use what platform you have to let others feel less alone and talk about the possibilities.

I hope that, indeed, it is a long journey and a slow one in terms of progression.

My mom turned 65 in April and it’s like my eyes have suddenly opened to how she’s aging. It’s so hard to see her getting older. She’s my person and my rock.

My husband has had some man crushes over the years that have taken a bad turn – Lance Armstrong, Brian Williams – but Sully has never let him down. He’s a man of all men.

Hell is coming. Families suffer much more than the patients. I went through 16 years of my father with Alzheimer’s. He was a genius so it was slow and took forever. He would deny everything saying he was fine. He would blow up the microwave finally had to put him in a care facility. I went and took care of him every day. He would memorize the code to get out the front door of the facility. He would fall for every scam on the computer. Finally had to take it away from him. It was a living hell of me for 16 years. Plus it hurt he always felt I betrayed him when I sold his house and then took his drivers license away from him. Then in the end he had to go to a totally controlled facility again I went daily because I couldn’t trust the staff and these were expensive facilities. So sad. And in the end I had hospice come in to help me take care of him. I was with him when he died. That was rough two days of actively dying. He was my idol it truly was crushing to go through it. And for sooo long.

Fuck Alzheimer’s.

Damn it. I hate this for him.

Damn, that’s devastating. Sully’s level of coolheadedness in that situation is just crazy awe-inspiring to this day.

I think of him often lately as we’re seeing the aviation industry continue to cut corners in the name of profits, as I remember him speaking out about the way young, super underpaid pilots with minimal experience were working way out of their depth (after that one Buffalo-area crash in particular). I distinctly remember the media speaking about that as if it was some “controversial” take, when it should have been obvious to anyone with some common sense that paying pilots sub-minimum wage and is was literally a safety risk. Definitely a wise man and a shame to see him and his family go through this.

💔

In 2019, I was in an airport and sitting next to a couple. A man walked by and recognized the man in the couple and said hello, but the woman said that her husband had recently been diagnosed with early onset Alzheimer’s at age 53 and that he was struggling to remember people from his past. As she talked to the man, she told him about how they had always planned to travel as soon as her husband retired at 55, but that his diagnosis ~18 months ahead of his retirement had completely upended their plans and now their time was spent mostly at home and at doctors’ appointments. The conversation was seven years ago, but it stays with me. My takeaway was, don’t wait — if there’s something you want to accomplish, don’t delay if at all possible, because you don’t know what tomorrow brings. It’s inspiring that Captain Sully is determined to use this objectively devastating diagnosis to continue his legacy of service. Other heroes, like Jack Hanna and his family, have done the same. Wishing them, and all those individuals who suffer with Alzheimer’s and their families, all the best. 

I met Sully once on a flight – we were seated next to each other. I didn’t recognize him without his mustache at first. We ended up chatting a little on the flight then had coffee together after, comparing our experiences in the military. He was just extraordinarily nice and professional and approachable. I am so sorry to read this – he epitomizes what we should expect from airline pilots.