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[I can't remember the last time I was so struck by a person. In January the day this happened, as the weeks went by I would think to myself that there must be something unique about this man to not be flooding the air with his own face...he somehow escaped the media jackyls for longer than anyone I've seen before....He seems so honest, focused, and has a heart of gold. I hope the rest of his life he is blessed with health & happiness.]

Asked if the passengers talked to him, Sullenberger said, "One man did. He said, 'You saved my life, thank you.'" The captain's response? "You're welcome." "And at that point also I was telling the people on the deck of the boats to rescue the people on the wings first, because we in the rafts were relatively safe," Sullenberger recalled. He told Couric seeing the passengers standing on the wings was an "amazing sight" - one he'd never forget. Sullenberger had landed the plane right between two ferry terminals. Within minutes, the first rescue boat pulled up alongside it, with others close behind. "It was amazing. It was crucial. It was lifesaving, literally," he said. Asked what he would like to say to those rescuers and first responders, Sullenberger told Couric, "'Thank you' seems totally inadequate. I have a debt of gratitude I fear I may never be able to repay." "According to someone in the pilots' union, you were still in total professional mode once you got off that airplane," Couric said. "Well, I may have looked like it, but I was in shock," Sullenberger admitted. "I just crashed an airplane." One of the first calls Sullenberger made was to his wife Lorrie. Asked what he said to her, Lorrie Sullenberger said, "Well, I'll tell on myself and say that, when he did call our house, I was actually on the other line. And I ignored the phone call twice. And when he called the third time, I said to the person, 'I think I should take the call.' And so I hung up and took the call from Sully. And he was very calm and said, 'I just wanted you to know I'm okay.' But I thought that meant that he was on the flight coming home, that he had made the connection and was coming home. And I just said, 'Okay, that's good.' And he said, 'No, there's been an incident. I had to ditch an airplane in the Hudson River.' And I laid down on the bed for a moment. I wasn't crying, but I was just in shock, really shaking hard. I called an old best friend and said, 'Sully has just crashed an airplane and I don't know what to do.' And she said, 'Go get your girls.' And so I hung up and I went and got the girls and brought them home. "