Less Words, More Impact
By Graham Davies

Now that the authorities have released the relevant radio transcripts, it’s apparent that the Chuck Norris Award for Minimum Use of Words for Maximum Impact has to go to Captain Chesley Sullenberger of US Airways.

I realise that he has decades of experience and training behind him, and he was flying a top class bit of kit with an equally professional team around him. But in exceptional circumstances, decades of experience and training and professional practice can desert even the most skilled professional in an instant of terror and pure panic.

Sullenberger, by contrast, was unperturbed. When he realised that there was only one possible destination for his plane (a point at which many professional communicators would have used a combination of swear words and desperate appeals to a variety of deities) all he said to the control tower was "We're going to be in the Hudson".

Minimum words, maximum heroism.

I’d like to think there’s one bit missing from the tape. It’s the bit at the very end where he says "Just finishing off the old Murray Mint, what”.