“Captain Cool” is the toast of the town.
Hero pilot Chesley Sullenberger and his crew were honored all around Manhattan yesterday.
They got keys to the city from Mayor Bloomberg.
Later, they were treated to dinner at the Blue Fin Restaurant and tickets to the Broadway show “Chicago.” When it ended, they were called to the stage and got a standing ovation.
Sullenberger, whose miraculous Hudson River landing last month saved all 155 people aboard US Airways Flight 1549, got a better look at the Big Apple than he usually gets taking off from La Guardia.
“It’s even more beautiful than I imagined,” he told reporters at City Hall.
Bloomberg, describing Sullenberger as “Captain Cool,” hailed him, his co-pilot and three flight attendants as “five real American heroes.”
He gave them gold-plated, 5 3/4-inch-long pewter keys to the city – replicas of a 19th-century skeleton key that still opens a door at City Hall.
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Each key symbolically conveys that the city’s gates will always be open to the recipient, but comes with no benefit other than bragging rights.
“If this key makes me a New Yorker, I hope it does, because I’d love to be considered a New Yorker,” flight attendant Sheila Dail said.
Bloomberg, himself a pilot, said, “Thank you for renewing our faith in the strength of human spirit.”
Sullenberger, who dashed about town doing TV interviews, said he wanted “to correct the record” about who saved the jet.
“Our crew of five, as well as the first responders here in New York and the cooperation of the passengers, made this successful emergency landing possible,” he said.
His co-pilot, Jeffrey Skiles, added, “We got ourselves into the river. You all got us out of the river, and I appreciate that greatly.”
Bloomberg also gave Sullenberger a copy of a book, “Just Culture: Balancing Safety and Accountability,” which the pilot had brought aboard the Jan. 15 flight and lost when the plane was ditched.
Flight attendant Doreen Welsh became teary-eyed at one point during the City Hall ceremony.
She wasn’t wearing her uniform and was the only member of the crew, including fellow attendant Donna Dent, who wasn’t sure she would wear it and fly again.
“I just, I can’t wear it yet. I don’t know,” she said. “I’m taking it day by day.”
Sullenberger splash-landed in the Hudson after the Airbus lost power when it hit a flock of geese minutes after takeoff.
Aviation experts called his handling of the plane phenomenal.
Yesterday, he began his long day telling the CBS “Early Show” his career prepared him for that moment.
“For 42 years, I had made small, regular deposits of education, training and experience,” he said. “And the experience balance was sufficient that on January 15th, I could make a sudden, large withdrawal.”