Sully knows a thing or two about landing a plane under harrowing conditions, after all, he’s the pilot of the ‘miracle on the Hudson,’ who was forced to make an emergency landing in the Hudson in 2009 when the failed.

Today, he’s praising Tammie Jo Shults, the captain of a Southwest Airlines flight that suffered a deadly midair engine explosion on Tuesday,

“Certainly there are some similarities,” Captain Sullenberger, whose story was made into a film said in an interview on Wednesday. He said he was “impressed” that Captain Shults and her crew “seem to have done a really good job and remained calm, communicated well, had good teamwork.”

“These kinds of events are life-changing for everybody on the airplane,” Captain Sullenberger said. “They divide one’s life into before and after.”

Explaining that pilots use a flight simulator to train for the possibility of midair engine failure, Sully said that the number who experience and survive one amounts to “a small club.”

Both Captain Sullenberger, 67, and Captain Shults, 56, share more than responding to a midair crisis; both are former fighter pilots with many years in commercial aviation.

While Capt. Tammie Jo Shults insists she was just ‘doing her job’ the passengers on that flight have praised her for ‘having nerves of steel’ and keeping everyone calm.