The movie came out years ago, but I only saw it this week. Sully is the story of a pilot who managed to land a plane on the Hudson when both engines failed shortly after take off. Instead of being an unqualified hero for saving the lives of 155 people, the powers that be sought to prosecute him. 

 

The hearing was grueling.

 

Sully was a seasoned pilot of forty years, and responded to the emergency with both the procedures that had been pounded into him over four decades, and unwavering resolve to keep everyone aboard safe. He made the hard decisions that resulted in a water landing, followed by a collective rescue by hundreds of New York City's first responders. 

 

In the last stretch of the inquiry, it became obvious that Sully had come to the right conclusion. But what impacted me was the sheer magnitude of the investigation. The time between when the flock of birds disabled the engines and the fuselage pounded the Hudson was four minutes. How long can you dissect four minutes? 

 

I get it that there were lives at stake. But the composite future of a man and his family hung in the balance based on the scrutiny of his actions of two hundred and forty seconds. Of what import were the other two billion?

 

Sometimes when I was less than fully attentive while driving, it crossed my mind that a single lapse could completely hijack the trajectory of everyone in the car. Plus all the people who love them. Even those situations when I was not barreling along at sixty miles an hour there have been moments of slipped awareness, like when I was an exhausted mother of four and walking beside a busy road. 

 

Is it true that a flock of seconds can obliterate the itinerary of a person's entire life? Such vulnerability threatens to render me paralyzed with fear. 

 

There are and ever have been people who pay dearly for mistakes they didn't intend. There are others who skate away with no recourse for deeds that wreak havoc of great magnitude. The only way I can resolve these glaring injustices, is to step way back, higher than 3,000 feet, wider than a view of the Hudson, turn off the auto pilot that is judgment, and watch God glide me in to a miraculous landing.