William Gibson Quotes

Just had a close call landing in Tampa. The tires blew out upon landing.

Like the Spitfire it was immensely strong: a pilot had no need to fear the danger of pulling the wings off, no matter how desperate the situation became.

They say any landing you can walk away from is a good one.

If a natural disaster like a flock of birds or a bolt of lightning causes a plane's engines to fail, you know what should be expected? That the pilot will keep his or her wits about them and do their best to save each and every soul on board. That's precisely what Captain 'Sully' Sullenberger and the rest of his crew did.

When you design it, think how you would feel if you had to fly it! Safety first!

My plan was to land in Red Square, but there were too many people and I thought I'd cause casualties.

When I fly in a helicopter, I insist there be two sets of controls, one for me in case something happens to the pilot. I'm no expert, but I know enough to at least get the thing on the ground. Nothing scares me like the thought of not being in control.

In thinking back to when we had our big glitch, I remember seeing it get light outside the window. We were in the clouds; I'm pretty sure we got hit by lightning.

There's always a possibility that you can have a catastrophic failure, of course. This could happen on any flight.

I never did get hit, and neither did any of the leaders that I flew wing for.

It was especially hard for me, as a professional pilot. In all of my years of flying - including combat in Korea - this was the first time that my aircraft and I had not come back together. In my entire career as a pilot, 'Liberty Bell' was the first thing I had ever lost.

If black boxes survive air crashes - why don't they make the whole plane out of that stuff?

I've been in a few fights and I know what it's like to get punched in the face.

The other day the plane that Barack Obama was on had some mechanical difficulties and was forced to land. Well, the National Transportation Safety Board did an inspection on the plane, and you know what they found? The bolts on the plane were fine, but apparently Jesse Jackson had taken some of the nuts off.

We will not have any more crashes in our time.

When a plane lands in the Hudson and there's a Twitter user on the ferry taking a picture of it, Boom. That's it. The water is still splashing. Here's the photo of the thing.

Can't punch women in the face!

Here's a phrase that apparently the airlines simply made up: near miss. They say that if 2 planes almost collide, it's a near miss. Bullshit, my friend. It's a near hit! A collision is a near miss. [WHAM! CRUNCH!] "Look, they nearly missed!" "Yes, but not quite.

My face has been tucked in more times than a bedsheet at the Holiday Inn.

When you're a pilot, and you know all the ways to survive an airplane crash and how low the chances are, you feel safer.

The fact that he was willing to sacrifice his own face in order to keep mine from getting bashed in

Don't face the facts.

When I look at the smiles on all the children's faces...I just know they're about to jab me with something.

For me, it really just feels calm. When you're going fast on a downhill course, it's typically where it's wide open. I think it's kind of like driving a car. If you're going really fast and it's straight, everything seems to slow down. In general, racing downhill involves bigger turns and everything sort of slows down and you have a lot of time to think.