'Sully' Sullenberger received Alzheimer's diagnosis after 'photographic memory' began to fail

Martha Ross, The Mercury News on Jul 14, 2026

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Capt. Chesley “Sully” Sullenberger III, the Bay Area-based pilot who became a national hero in 2009 after he landed his US Airways flight on the Hudson River and saved 155 passengers and crew, disclosed Tuesday that he has been diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease.

The 75-year-old retired pilot responsible for the “Miracle on the Hudson” plane landing revealed his diagnosis in a statement to People magazine.

“It is early stage,” Sullenberger told People. “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.”

He and his wife, Lorrie Sullenberger, explained that this “journey” of living with a progressive neurodegenerative brain disorder, began a year ago after he noticed that something was “a bit off” with what he describes as his photographic memory, People reported. Over time, Sullenberger found he would forgot things and couldn’t recall details he could once easily summon.

So far, the disease has done little to impact Sullenberger’s “renowned powers of unflappability and focus,” Lorrie Sullenberger told People.

“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,” Lorrie Sullenberger said.

The couple acknowledge that they don’t know what the future holds, but Lorrie Sullenberger said they are trying to live each day with “hope” and “joy.” The former, longtime Danville residents, who currently live in San Francisco, according to People, share two daughters and a granddaughter.

Sullenberger is the second major Bay Area celebrity in the past month to reveal he’s been diagnosed with the incurable disorder, which, over time, slows a person’s movements, memory and speech. Danny Glover, the legendary San Francisco film and TV actor and lifelong activist, revealed that he, too, had been diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease. Glover, 79, said in an interview with the “Today” show that he had been living with the condition for several years.

In statements that both Glover and Sullenberger made to the media about their conditions, they pointed out that they are among the more than 7 million Americans, 65 and older, who are living with the disease.

“I can live with it, in a sense,” Glover, the the four-time Emmy-nominated actor told “NBC Nightly News” anchor Lester Holt. He said, “I’m sure as it advances, things are going to be different and changing.”

Both Glover and Sullenberger also have shown a desire to use their national profiles to educate the public about Alzheimer’s disease and to let others dealing with it know they are not alone, as People reported.

“I have spent my life in service, in the U.S. Air Force, as a commercial airline pilot, an accident investigator, and as the U.S. Ambassador to ICAO (International Civil Aviation Organization),” said Sullenberger, whose heroic act on Jan. 15, 2009 led to him being played by Tom Hanks in Clint Eastwood’s 2016 film, “Sully.”

“I have advocated for the safety of the traveling public for decades. And, of course, after the landing of Flight 1549 in the Hudson River, I used the greater voice afforded to me by ‘The Miracle on the Hudson’ to further aviation safety by speaking out on the many issues facing the industry,” Sullenberger continued.

“This new phase of my life has challenged what it means to be of service,” Sullenberger also said. “And the answer is to speak up. It is my hope that by sharing this, other families living in the shadows with this disease will feel they too can step forward.”

More than anything, Sullenberger said he wants to be an advocate for hope. “So many people told us after Flight 1549, that the outcome gave them hope,” he said. “Lorrie, my incredible partner of 37 years, says we can all use a little of that hope right now.”