Runway in view

Fifteen years ago, in January 2009, US Airways Captain Chesley ‘Sully’ Sullenberger landed an Airbus A320 in the Hudson River in New York City.

It was an iconic moment in the history of aviation. The forced landing was necessary after both engines were knocked out by a bird strike – the plane hit a flock of Canadian geese. With all 155 people on board surviving, it rightly made Sullenberger a hero, and he was later played by Tom Hanks in a film based on the events of that New York winter’s day.

Sullenberger downplayed the hero angle and put his actions down to his many years of experience as a pilot. “One way of looking at this might be that for 42 years, I've been making small, regular deposits in this bank of experience, education and training. And on January 15, the balance was sufficient so that I could make a very large withdrawal." It is less well known that in his many years as a pilot he was extensively involved in researching aviation safety, worked as an air accident investigator, and studied the psychology of how a cabin crew functions in a crisis. He knew a thing or two about crashes, and he managed to pull off the softest of all soft landings.

The big question now is whether central bankers can pull off something similar, achieving sustained lower inflation without the economy going into recession.

Inflation is often a sign of an overheating economy, and therefore getting it under control means cooling down the economy. However, given the lags involved, central banks often overtighten, and a ‘cooling down’ ends up as a recession. The US Federal Reserve has only achieved a soft landing three times (depending on how exactly you define it) in 14 post-war rate cycles.

Click here to read more...