09/03/2026
On September 24, Miracle on the Hudson captain Sully Sullenberger will be enshrined in the National Aviation Hall of Fame. It is aviation's most prestigious hall of fame, chartered by an act of Congress in 1964, and among the people already in it are the Wright brothers, Charles Lindbergh, Amelia Earhart, Chuck Yeager and Neil Armstrong.
Only a handful of people are added each year. This year there are 7, and Sullenberger is the only name most of us would recognize.
Here is who else is going in.
One is an astronaut, Peggy Whitson, who has spent more time living in space than almost anyone and became the first woman to command the International Space Station.
One is an engineer, William Bahret, who is called the father of stealth. He figured out how to calculate whether an aircraft would show up on radar just from its shape, before anyone built it. Every stealth aircraft flying today exists because of that work.
And one is Leonard Greene, who invented the stall warning, the alarm that tells a pilot the wings are about to lose lift. It has been in cockpits since the 1940s, and it has been saving lives quietly ever since. He also started a charity that flies cancer patients to treatment for free, using the empty seats on corporate jets.
A man who spent his life keeping airplanes in the air, then used airplanes to keep people alive.
