Over 1,200 people were part of the rescue team when a U.S. Airways flight made an emergency water landing in the Hudson River in 2009 — and Warner Bros. hired some of them for Clint Eastwood‘s biopic “Sully.”
An individual with knowledge of the project told TheWrap that some of the rescuers recreated what they did on that fateful day for the film. It chronicles how Captain Chesley “Sully” Sullenberger made a water landing with 155 people on board.
When the plane landed in the Hudson River, ferry boats from the NY Waterway and Circle Line Sightseeing Cruises fleet went out almost immediately. Within minutes, vessels from the New York City fire and police departments, as well as marine units and rescue divers, arrived on the scene. It took them 24 minutes to save everyone.
An estimated 35 ambulances waited on the dock, with about 140 FDNY firefighters waiting to help passengers. The American Red Cross was on-site.
Warner Bros. and Village Roadshow went through extreme measures to make the film as accurate as possible, even bringing a real A320 aircraft from the Mojave Desert to a water tank in a Hollywood studio. They had to make sure the freeway underpasses were high enough to let the aircraft travel more than 80 miles.
Other shooting locations for “Sully” included North Carolina, where the actual U.S. Airways aircraft now resides at the Carolinas Aviation Museum.
“Sully” opens Friday.