This letter is something the modern internet and media are sorely missing - a real expert opinion instead of a flood of "armchair expert" opinions. I would always prefer one opinion of someone who does, over a hundred opinions of those who think.
OTOH, there's plenty of experts in every field who can and do say "I've been doing this for 30 years, and I know that ..." and then mention something they do which statisticians have since shown isn't effective.
Sully is worth listening to here because the facts are on his side, in terms of blaming the victim versus analyzing the system as a whole. Sully is getting a lot of airtime in the media because he's a famous public figure, but a new pilot 6 months out of flight school would be just as correct with the same facts.
He's a smart guy who is obviously familiar with the safety research done in his field. His own decades of experience do not constitute research on their own, though.
