Captain Sully Sullenberger Announces Alzheimer's Diagnosis, Early Stage

Captain Chesley "Sully" Sullenberger III, now 75, announced Tuesday, July 14, that he has been diagnosed with Alzheimer's disease. He shared the news in an interview with People magazine and in a statement posted to his personal website.

"I recently found out I have been diagnosed with Alzheimer's Disease," Sullenberger said, according to People. "It is early stage. For now, this means a name may not come easily to me, I forget a story I have recently told, or I don't sleep as well, but I am in the beginning of this long journey."

According to Global News, Sullenberger was actually diagnosed back in August 2025, nearly a year before going public. He said he first noticed something was wrong when his photographic memory began intermittently failing him.

Who Sully Is and Why the Name Matters

On January 15, 2009, Sullenberger was piloting US Airways Flight 1549 out of LaGuardia Airport when a flock of geese struck the plane shortly after takeoff, disabling both engines, according to the BBC. With no runway reachable in time, Sullenberger and his crew put the jet down in the Hudson River. All 155 passengers and crew survived, an event that became known worldwide as the "Miracle on the Hudson."

CBS News, citing a cockpit voice recorder transcript, reported the entire emergency landing took less than four minutes from bird strike to splashdown. Sullenberger retired from flying a year later, in 2010. Tom Hanks played him in the 2016 film "Sully." He later served as an on-air aviation safety expert for CBS News and, per Us Weekly, was nominated by then-President Joe Biden in 2021 to serve as U.S. ambassador to the International Civil Aviation Organization.

The Diagnosis and What He's Saying

Sullenberger credited Dr. Gil Rabinovici of UCSF Medical Center with helping him understand how common the disease is. "This disease, he has told me, spares no age group and impacts millions of people around the world," Sullenberger wrote, according to Global News and Us Weekly. "It is the unwanted visitor at the door."

Alzheimer's is the most common cause of dementia, gradually eroding memory and other cognitive functions, and currently has no cure, according to CBS News. More than 7 million Americans are living with the disease, per the Alzheimer's Association, while the National Library of Medicine puts the number at roughly 7.2 million among Americans 65 and older.

Sullenberger framed his decision to go public as an extension of the same instinct that guided him in the cockpit in 2009. "Over the years, when people would ask about the successful outcome of Flight 1549, I would say that 'courage can be contagious,' and on that day it helped everyone band together to get everyone off that airplane successfully," he wrote, according to the BBC. "Now we need that courage to battle this disease. I am now part of a larger community with many of you, and we will be courageous together."

Family Response

Sullenberger's wife, Lorraine "Lorrie" Henry, married to him since 1989, told People the diagnosis hasn't changed who he is. "Just as he was the same steady person before and after Flight 1549, he is the same steady person now, before and after this diagnosis," she said, according to Global News. "That strength and steadiness is guiding us as a family. We're supporting him on this journey that we now walk with so many other families. Though the future is uncertain, we continue to live our lives, have hope, and find joy in the everyday."

The couple has two daughters, Kate and Kelly, welcomed via adoption, and Sullenberger's statement opened by thanking his daughters, wife, and granddaughter. "Grandchildren are a game changer," he wrote. "Our granddaughter gives a whole new meaning to life."

What's Not Known

Sullenberger's team has not released details on treatment plans or a prognosis timeline. None of the reporting indicates he is stepping back from public advocacy work. He has framed the disclosure as the start of a new advocacy chapter rather than a retreat from public life, saying he hopes other families "living in the shadows with this disease will feel they too can step forward." Whether Sullenberger continues his aviation safety advocacy work at the same pace going forward remains an open question.