A story few people are aware of—one director Clint Eastwood himself may have long ago forgotten, but which connects him in a unique way with the subject matter of “Sully” —came to light when working on the film.
As a young man of 21 in the Army, Eastwood was a passenger on a Navy plane, “catching a free flight from Seattle down to Alameda,” he relates. “It was stormy and we went down off of Point Reyes, California, in the Pacific, and I found myself in the water, swimming a few miles toward shore, thinking, ‘Well, 21’s not as long as a person wants to live.’”