How do we know Sullenberger didn't fail once or multiple times in his career? Maybe he said it in his book, but honestly, he landed in the Hudson on a VFR? How about the TACA crew that dead sticked a 737 onto a levy in New Orleans in a TSRA (because the engines were not made properly and flamed out in heavy rain) or the Air Transat crew that landed in Lajes in an A330 in the first 1,000' of the runway at 6 in the morning after dead sticking it for 20 minutes? (thanks wiki)

Just saying, I see Sully's name all of the time on this forum but really there have been some things done in real life that are phenomenal but thanks to not being done in NYC nobody cares? We did the hudson maneuver in the sim for fun, it ain't hard although I really don't want to try floating in an MD88. I think it'd make a lousy boat but an A+ submarine.

Picture of the TACA incident:

I mean is that dude not a bad ass?

As to the start of this thread, I think a lot of guys get dinged at somepoint in their career, usually their first Part 121 ride which may or may not be a pink slip. I don't know how that works.

But what I'd like to know is how many Feds have failed their rides? We had someone at Coex overseeing our B1900 operation that loved to fail pilots, loved it, thought everyone learned something from being failed. Then of course he failed more than 3 or 4 times on the ERJ-145 and they put him in another program but I know if he passed he'd gone off and failed as many pilots as he could and both XJT and the FAA knew it. If we're fired if we fail twice, so should Feds or at the least they should not be given oversight, IMHO. That should be an easy rule to implement. And FWIW, I was not on the 1900D but we all knew of their checkride plight.