US Airways pilot big on Facebook
Want some big exposure on Facebook? Just pull off a water landing in a fully loaded passenger jet.
For Chesley B. Sullenberger, who successfully landed US Airways Flight 1549 in the Hudson river Thursday, that happening appeared to have given him a cult-like following on the popular social network.
So far users have created nearly a dozen fan pages for Sullenberger, the most active of which is pulling in more than 100 new fans a minute and totals more than 51,000 members at the time of this posting. While it's nowhere near the millions attained by some celebrities and political figureheads like President-Elect Barack Obama, it's only been a day since the historic landing.
Pilot Chesley B. Sullenberger has a fan page on Facebook that's pulling in more than 100 new fans a minute.
(Credit: CNET Networks)To put things in perspective, Sullenberger may end up being the most popular pilot on Facebook. Amelia Earhart who was the first woman to fly solo across the Atlantic Ocean, has less than 500 fans, while sound barrier-busting Chuck Yeager has close to 1,600.
Josh Lowensohn writes for Webware.com, CNET's blog about Web applications and services. E-mail Josh, or follow him on Twitter at http://www.twitter.com/Josh. 



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Regards,
Ty Ford
The man saves 155 lives (and probably countless more) and he's supposed to be important because he's "big" on Facebook?
Why do writers have to look for another angle?
It's almost as if saving lives (and doing your job - briliantly in my opinion) somehow needs something else to validate it.
I just wish this kind of childish - and it is childish - search for importance would stop.
Accept it for what is it.
Seems pretty logical and straight forward to me.
Facebook is one of the largest social networks on the Web and its public figures pages are a great way to net public interest on something. If you had kept an eye on the rest of our coverage you would have seen that last week's news impacted other Web services like Twitpic to a different degree. This is just another layer to that.
Interesting...
Do you have any sense at all?
I'm confused, did i say touchdowns = heroism? I dont know what you hear on t.v. has to do with me.
Anyway...
There are many jobs where things can go wrong and its that professional's job to make it right.
Should this guy get recognized? Sure, make him employee of the year - but dont slap a hero sticker on him for doing something he is EXPECTED to do.
What was he going to do, NOT try to land the plane safely? Please...
The expectations are that there will be many serious injuries, and deaths. That's the expectation.
And anyways. You can be a hero for doing your job regardless.
Right on... I'm sure shahnyboy did it last night in Microsoft Flight Simulator after that busy night at Dennys. You know those floors won't mop themselves...
- by Harrison912 January 20, 2009 12:06 PM PST
- Thanks for the report, Josh. I'm typically on FaceBook to socially market my safety and security web site as well as raise awarness for it's products so any news about what's going on at FaceBook is of interest to me.
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