Jeffrey Skiles

Jeffrey Bruce "Jeff" Skiles (born November 18, 1959) is an American airline pilot for American Airlines.[1] On January 15, 2009, he was the co-pilot of US Airways Flight 1549, when the plane lost all its engines, and he helped captain Chesley Sullenberger land their plane on the Hudson River.[2][3][4] Sullenberger was widely celebrated for landing the plane with no loss of life.

Jeffrey Skiles
Skiles at the 2009 presidential inauguration
Born	(1959-11-18) November 18, 1959 Oregon, Wisconsin
Nationality	United States
Occupation	Airline pilot; former co-chairman of the EAA Young Eagles Program with Chesley Sullenberger
Known for	copilot of US Airways Flight 1549

Although Skiles was flying as a co-pilot on flight 1549, this was due to a staff reductions at US Airways.[5] He had flown as a Captain, prior to the staff reductions, and actually had slightly more flight hours than Sullenberger, though had much less experience in the Airbus A320.

Both Skiles parents are pilots, and he became a pilot, himself, when he was just sixteen years old.[2] He first worked flying cargo airplanes, and then worked for Midstate Airlines, but, at the time of the emergency landing he had been with US Airways for 26 years.

Atul Gawande, author of The Checklist Manifesto, asserted that the successful emergency landing relied on the cooperation of Sullenberger and Skiles.[6] Gawande's central premise is that even really experienced people, in any field, encounter rare events, and that successfully coping with the rare event requires first the careful anticipation of future emergencies, and second, preparing a well thought out list of steps to follow, in advance.

" Capt. Sullenberger could be certain that Skiles was doing everything possible to re-start the engines, while he focused all of his attention and skill upon the problem of finding a place to land. The pilot and crew’s adherence to strict protocols contained in the checklist allowed them to function in a complex and dire situation."[6]

In his book Gawande reminded readers that, during an emergency, there are so many tasks to complete, that the co-pilot is working at least as hard as the pilot.[7] Sullenberger had taken on the task of finding a safe place to land, and actually landing, leaving his experienced copilot Skiles the task of following the checklist to try to restart the jet engines. He noted that Skiles was able to complete the checklist in the less than three minute period between the bird strike and the landing, noting this was "something investigators later testified to be "very remarkable" in the time frame he had--and something they found difficult to replicate in simulation."

PBS interviewer Charlie Rose interviewed Skiles on February 10, 2009.[8] During that interview Skiles predicted that Sullenberger would receive on-going attention, but that his fifteen minutes of fame would end when he left Rose's studio. However, he too occasionally was called on to offer advice on crisis management.[9]

After a formal review of their performance both Sullenberger and Skiles had their flight status restored, but Sullenberger retired in 2010.[10] Sullenberger and Skiles flew together, on March 3, 2010, on a recreation of their original flight plan, on Sullenberger's last flight as for US Airways. It was their second flight together, as the pair had never worked together before the famous flight.[11]

In March of 2011, Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker tried to introduce a bill that critics described as an attempt to curb unions from engaging in collective bargaining.[12] Union leaders called for a boycott of the M&I Bank, due to public records showing the bank had made large donations to Walker's election campaign. The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel singled Skiles out as an individual who had made a very large withdrawal from the bank to protest the legislation. The Journal Sentinel reported Skiles was vice president of the Coalition of Airline Pilots Association, which represents 28,000 pilots.

In the 2016 drama film Sully, directed by Clint Eastwood, Skiles is portrayed by Aaron Eckhart and Sullenberger by Tom Hanks.

As of 2019 Skiles was working for American Airlines, piloting Boeing 787 Dreamliners.[1]