North Texas pilot who crash-landed plane on Hudson River inspires film starring Tom Hanks

"This is the captain," Chesley "Sully" Sullenberger tells 155 passengers and crew as his US Airways flight speeds toward the Hudson River. "Brace for impact."

Seven years after the Texas pilot's famous emergency landing -- hailed as "the miracle on the Hudson" because everyone survived -- the feat has been turned into a movie directed by Clint Eastwood.

Sullenberger, a native of Denison in Grayson County, is being played by Tom Hanks in the eponymous Sully, which opens Friday.

The pilot was proclaimed a hero for gliding the plane to safety after a flock of Canada geese damaged both engines shortly after takeoff. Still, federal crash investigators questioned Sullenberger's decision to land on the river instead of heading back to LaGuardia Airport, propelling the drama in Sully.

Here are five things you should know about Sullenberger's story:

1. Sullenberger's childhood in rural Texas influenced his career choice.

Though he at first wanted to be a policeman and a fireman, Sullenberger had a change of heart at age 5.

In his memoir, Highest Duty: My Search for What Really Matters,  Sullenberger describes watching jet fighters crisscross the sky above his Denison home in the 1950s. His family lived by a lake, about 9 miles north of Perrin Air Force Base.

"My dad would give me his binoculars, and I loved looking into the distance, to the horizon, wondering what was out there," Sullenberger wrote. "It fed my wanderlust."

He took his first plane ride in 1962 out of Dallas Love Field, which Sullenberger described as "a magical place filled with larger-than-life people."

Five years later, at age 16, Sullenberger took his first solo flight in Sherman.  He was taught by a crop-dusting pilot named L.T. Cook.

2. The Flight 1549 crisis lasted less than 4 minutes.

The plane was 3,000 feet above New York when it ran into a flock of geese on Jan. 15, 2009.

About 208 seconds transpired from the moment the birds hit the engines to the moment the plane splashed in the Hudson River.

As Sullenberger tells it, he and co-pilot Jeffrey Skiles (played in the movie by Aaron Eckhart) had three choices: go for either of two runways that seemed reachable, or land on the Hudson.

Sullenberger estimated they couldn't get back to the airport in time.

"We're gonna be in the Hudson," he calmly tells air traffic control in a cockpit recording of the flight.

The captain had to keep the airplane's nose pulled up until the very last second to avoid a catastrophe. And he had to keep both wings level as he approached the river or risk clipping one of them and flipping the plane.

3.  After the landing, Sullenberger second-guessed his decision.

The pilot told reporters that he couldn't get a full night's sleep for weeks after the incident.

"The first few nights were the worst," Sullenberger told CBS' Katie Couric. "When the 'what ifs' started."

He said he initially had trouble forgiving himself because he thought he could have done something different, but later he came to terms with his decision.

A federal inquiry into the accident showed that several experienced pilots were able to maneuver the plane safely back to the airport in a simulator replicating the conditions of Flight 1549.

But investigators concluded that Sullenberger had made the right call given what he knew at the time.

"The captain's decision to ditch on the Hudson River rather than attempting to land at an airport provided the highest probability that the accident would be survivable," the National Transportation Safety Board wrote in a report released in May 2010.

The real-life federal investigators have objected to their portrayal in the movie, saying that they come across as trying to blame the pilots when that was not the case.

4. Sullenberger received a hero's welcome when he returned to Denison.

Denison -- a small city about 75 miles north of Dallas -- received the pilot with a parade, a VIP reception and a D-Day memorial program during a visit in June 2009 that was covered by The Dallas Morning News.

"You showed people how to do things Texas-style," then-Gov. Rick Perry told Sullenberger, who also served in the Air Force.

One of the people most excited to see the pilot was 91-year-old Evelyn Cook. Her husband taught Sullenberger how to fly when he was a teenager.

After former classmates showered him with praise, Sullenberger quipped: "How come you weren't this nice to me back in high school?"

5. Sullenberger is now retired and works as a speaker and aviation consultant.

After a career spanning three decades, Sullenberger retired in March 2010.

Since then, he has developed a video training program for flight safety, penned another book (Making a Difference: Stories of Vision and Courage from America's Leaders) and appeared on CBS as an aviation and safety expert. He has also testified before Congress regarding pilot safety.

According to his website, Sullenberger and his family live in the San Francisco Bay Area.

This report contains material from The Associated Press.