Captain Chesley “Sully” Sullenberger, the famed pilot of US Airways flight 1549 which landed in the Hudson River in January 2009 has called on the American people to vote President Trump out of office in the upcoming November election after reports emerged that he had allegedly called soldiers killed in action “losers” and “suckers”.
A military veteran himself, Captain Sullenberger said he was “disgusted with the current occupant of the Oval Office”. Sullenberger has been campaigning on behalf of Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden.
First reported in the Atlantic, the incumbent President is alleged to have made the inflammatory remarks on a trip to France in 2018. A visit to a US military cemetery outside of Paris was cancelled at the last minute because, sources claim, Trump feared the wet weather would cause havoc with his hair.
Trump is alleged to have said the cemetery was “filled with losers” and in separate remarks on the same trip, he allegedly called 1,800 soldiers who died in battle “suckers”. Trump has denied the allegations and called the reports “fake news”.
“I have long known that serving a cause greater than oneself is the highest calling, whether in the military or in civilian life. And I have always tried to be a voice of reason and to speak in a measured way,” Captain Sullenberger said in a Tweet thread on Friday.
“But this situation calls for a much more direct approach. It is time to call out egregious behavior for what it is,” he continued. “For the first time in American history, a president has repeatedly shown utter and vulgar contempt and disrespect for those who have served and died serving our country.”
“We owe it not only to those who have served and sacrificed for our nation, but to ourselves and to succeeding generations to vote him out,” Captain Sullenberger concluded, linking to the original story on The Atlantic website.
Captain Sullenberger was hailed a hero after the plane he was piloting was struck by a flock of geese shortly after takeoff from La Guardia airport in New York City. The bird strike caused a double engine failure and the plane did not have enough altitude to safely return to La Guardia or divert to Teterboro airport.
Sullenberger instead decided to land the Airbus A320 aircraft on the Hudson River. All 155 people onboard the aircraft survived. The story was documented in 2016 film Miracle on the Hudson.
