Frank Salzmann, one of Sullenberger's neighbors in Danville, a suburb east of San Francisco, said he was not at all surprised to hear Sullenberger was the pilot who landed the US Airways jet safely, calling him a "very calm, in-control and in-charge type."
"When you think of a captain of an airline, you pretty much think of Sully," said Salzmann, 45, a software engineer.
"It was just the right guy at the right time and at the right moment," added neighbor Jim Walberg. "Everybody is so proud and grateful and relieved."
He noted that Sullenberger, a humble man, would probably chafe at being called a hero.
"It's a name he will not take very easily," Walberg said.
In addition to Sullenberger's "passion for flying," the pilot and his family are involved in community service, working at food banks, raising dogs for the blind and doing walks for cancer research, Salzmann said.
Sullenberger and his wife, who have two teenage daughters, moved to their upscale Danville neighborhood about 11 years ago.
Two years ago, Sullenberger founded Safety Reliability Methods Inc., an aviation safety consulting firm based in the Bay Area.
Sullenberger lists on his resume several achievements in aviation safety, including identifying and helping to correct hundreds of Federal Aviation Administration instrument landing system procedures.
Karlene Roberts, director of UC Berkeley's Center for Catastrophic Risk Management, said she met Sullenberger two years ago when he contacted her about the center's work in reliability enhancement.
Roberts called him a pilot who was "at the top of his game."
On Thursday night, as his jet lay submerged in the frigid Hudson River, anchored at the southern tip of Manhattan, aviation experts said Sullenberger pulled off a maneuver so rare that pilots weren't taught how to execute it.
He faced an exceedingly unusual scenario: Although pilots often have to contend with what they call a "bird strike," it is uncommon for a flock to disable two engines at once, as apparently happened in this case. The plane essentially became a 170,000-pound glider, leaving little room for error.
To turn the aircraft and then land it without it breaking apart was "something that can't be taught," said Barry Schiff, a retired airline pilot who is now an aviation safety consultant in Camarillo.
