Capt. Chesley “Sully” Sullenberger doesn’t like the “H” word. But since January 15, 2009, when he and co-pilot Jeffrey Skiles brought U.S. Airways Flight 1549 down safely in the Hudson River after losing both engines, Sullenberger has made peace with his role as the public face of a remarkable event.

Now retired from commercial aviation, Sullenberger has written a book about the incident, Highest Duty: My Search for What Really Matters, and become a consultant to businesses and CBS News. Txchnologist talked to America’s favorite pilot about the “Miracle on the Hudson” coming to terms with the hero mantle and why pilots must remain a crucial part of flying even as technology takes on a larger role. (This interview was edited for length.)

Txchnologist: I feel like it would be illegal for me to not ask about the Miracle on the Hudson: Do you still relive that moment of the flight or have you moved on?

Capt. Sullenberger: No and then yes. I don’t relive it. I haven’t since a few months after it.

Certainly it was the ultimate challenge of a lifetime. It happened very suddenly after decades of routine flights. And it was traumatic. We all felt post-traumatic stress. My body physiologically responded intensely at the time but I had the discipline and focus to compartmentalize it and act in spite of it.

After a few months, you know, people are resilient. It also helped that I was a mature adult when this happened, so I had a lot of life experience to help me put this in perspective. I think moving on is not the right word for me because this is such a big story and I have become the public face of this event for many people. So we haven’t moved on but we’ve gotten over the trauma of that event certainly.

Txch: Are you comfortable with the idea of your heroism, with this mantle that’s been placed on you?

CS: That’s certainly something I had to struggle with early on, the “H” word. For us it didn’t quite cross the threshold – it wasn’t something I chose to do, this was thrust upon us. But then we did our jobs exceptionally well under a difficult circumstance. So what I chose to do was kind of an intellectual compromise to be true to myself. I certainly did not want to deny people the gift of their thanks to me. At the same time I wasn’t willing to take on that mantle as my own.

I don’t think of myself as a hero. I think of myself as a pilot who’s become famous because of this remarkable event.

Txch: You’re a consultant on risk assessment now. What kinds of problems do you help your clients with?

CS: I was one of those pilots who was always trying to improve and have a deeper understanding, especially about human performance in complicated systems. That has been a great skill that applies in lots of industries and domains: all the way from patient safety in medicine to oil and gas exploration and everything in between.

“I don’t think of myself as a hero. I think of myself as a pilot who’s become famous because of this remarkable event.”

Txch: With GPS technology capable of essentially flying and landing planes on their own, are we entering an era when pilots are a backup to the computers?

CS: No, that’s a bit of an overstatement. We certainly have more technology to assist now. One of the questions we must answer on every flight, is how much technology do we want to put between our brains and the flight control surfaces in the wings and the tail? I think the answer is we need to use the level of technology that’s appropriate for that phase of the flight.

Technology can only do what has been foreseen and therefore what has been programmed. Humans are particularly good at innovation, which is what we had to do two and a half years ago. That was a scenario for which we had never specifically trained. Never in the most demanding flight simulator training session had we practiced the entirety of those challenges, at such a low altitude at such a low speed in such a short time frame. We’d practiced portions of it so what we were able to do was to quickly synthesize a lifetime of training and experience and find a new way to solve a problem, in 208 seconds, that we’d never seen before.

Txch: You came to the defense of the pilots of Air France Flight 447, saying we don’t have enough evidence at this point to draw conclusions about that crash and how technology was involved.

CS: In these high-technology airplanes, what we have is a human-technology system. Obviously, this human-technology system, in the case of AF 447, failed. Our passengers deserve and expect and our industry expects that these systems should not fail in those kinds of situations. So we need to look at the entirety of the system and not only the human component.

We need to look also at the technology in our planes to make sure that not only in normal situations but in emergency situations that technology allows the pilots to perform at a high level. So the planes are not designed in such a way as to make it more difficult for pilots to quickly and effectively intervene when things go horribly wrong.

In a more traditional lower technology cockpit, it was somewhat easier to be more in the loop and to be more aware and more directly involved in the operation of the airplane systems. These automated airplanes have somewhat taken the pilot out of the loop and made it more difficult and required more diligence to remain mentally engaged with every portion of the flight.

Txch: Your flying career has spanned 44 years and enormous changes in aviation technology – has being a pilot changed fundamentally?

CS: Flying an airplane still involves the same fundamental skills, knowledge and judgment. What has changed are the tools that we have to use to effect safe flight – the technology involved. The job has changed tremendously in terms of how we work, how long we work, the compensation we receive, whether or not we have a retirement anymore.

The job has also changed in the way that people think of our profession and the status it’s afforded and how important it seems to be. My point of view is that it’s still a very important profession and it deserves to be thought of in a way that makes it important because what we do matters.

Top image: U.S. Airways Flight 1549 in the Hudson River. Photo/Courtesy Derek Rose