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Hero Pilot, Family Going To Inauguration?

The US Airways pilot being saluted as a hero and his family are apparently going to get to attend Barack Obama's inauguration festivities.

Lorrie Sullenberger, wife of Capt. Chesley "Sully" Sullenberger, told CBS News correspondent Priya David on The Early Show Saturday Edition a trip to Washington for her, her husband and their two daughters is "in the works."

In what's being widely hailed as a miracle, Sully Sullenberger guided Flight 1549 to an emergency landing on New York's Hudson River Thursday. All 155 people on board survived.

New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg said he has a key to the city waiting for Sully, and Sully got congratulatory phone calls Friday from both President Bush and President-elect Obama.

From the Sullenberger home in Danville, Calif., Lorrie told David, "Our daughters would love to go see the Jonas Brothers," who are on the roster of performers in one of the big inaugural concerts, "so we're thinking about (going to D.C. for the inaugural events). I would love to go. It's in the works, I believe."

Lorrie says she and her husband are "overwhelmed, really overwhelmed, but we are so thrilled with the happy outcome, and it's really all just sinking in.

"Just last night, actually, for the first time, I saw some of the reenactments about how the airplane actually had to land on the water with the nose high and I think, for the first time, kind of the enormity of the situation really hit me, and it was actually the first time that I cried since the whole incident started."

The nation seems to be celebrating her husband's feat as one, and Lorrie says she thinks that's "because it's just amazing how all the pieces came together so successfully, and I think everybody needed some good news, frankly. I know at our house, we watch the news and day after day, we'd say. 'I just don't know how much more bad news we can take.' And so not only am I glad my husband is happy, healthy and alive today, but just for the nation, I just didn't want to have another bad news accident for anybody's family."

Even though Sully is sequestered until he's interviewed (likely on Saturday) by National Transportation Safety Board and other federal officials, he has spoken with Lorrie, who says Sully "is not shaken. I laugh when people ask. You don't know my husband! He is the consummate pilot and very controlled. And so, it doesn't shake him at all. As a matter of fact, when he told me there had been an 'incident,' it was kind of funny!

"But he would also say this was not about him; this was about his crew. This was about everybody doing their part. He has spent his life teaching crew resource management, so it's about everyone doing a part, and so he brought the airplane in, but all of his crew got everyone out, so he would say it wasn't about him."

Lorrie adds that she and Sully would tell grateful passengers from Flight 1549 "the same thing, really, that it was about the entire crew. It was not just the crew. It was the entire circumstance. It was him doing his job, the crew getting everyone out, the fact that the New York responders - it was like it was a drill. It was all so perfect. It was just amazing how perfect it was and that it happened so quickly that, everyone was out of the water quickly. That's just incredible."



To see the CBSNews.com Special Report: Inauguration '09,"click here.
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