Transcript of Interview with Fred Berretta about Flight 1549. This interview and others like it can be found at http://www.catholicspotlight.com
Listen Now to the audio version of the show.
7 Secrets of the Eucharist at The Catholic Company.
http://www.catholiccompany.com/catholic-books/1001090/7-Secrets-Eucharist/
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Chris Cash: Welcome to Catholic Spotlight. This is the Catholic Spotlight, the show where we talk about what’s new, cool and exciting in the Catholic marketplace. I’m your host Chris Cash, director of E-Commerce from catholiccompany.com, your source for all your Catholic needs.
And today, we are having show 100, Ya Hoo, we have made it. We are reaching a very significant milestone today, and our special guest today is Fred Berretta who is a survivor from flight 1549. And he has a real incredible faith story to share with us. So, Fred, welcome to the show.
Fred Berretta: Thank you very much. Good to be here.
Chris Cash: Well, we are just thrilled to have you on. Well, Fred and I had been playing phone tag back and forth for probably the last month and a half now. I’m trying to get this set up. So, I’m just real thrilled that we were finally able to get you on, and as well get you on for show 100, ‘cause you know this is a real special show. And your experience is just – its half way unbelievable you know. There are many of you listeners out there may have seen the e-mail that Fred sent to Vinny Flynn, and just that e-mail has floated around the net for well over a month now, telling this incredible story. And I just really wanted to get Fred on to talk and tell us his personal rendition of the events of that day. What was going through your mind? What happened before hand? And then, how we could see God’s mercy and his merciful hand in all of this? So, Fred, I guess, share with us what happened?
Fred Berretta: Sure. Well, there is a lot to share, and I’ll try to – in a bit of a picture for you Chris. The few weeks I suppose or even months leading up to flight 1549 were very interesting to me on a personal level, like many folks in the U.S. and around the world that it’s been a difficult – it continues to be a very difficult times for all of us financially and due to the economic crises. And I work in the financial services industry and it had been impacted in terms of my retirement, savings and hard earned 401(k) et cetera. Pretty significantly, and it was really reflecting on that and just reflecting on my priorities. And I had committed myself to wanting to have a much more I’d say deep spiritual commitment in 2009. And I suppose my New Year’s resolution was primarily focused on that and I recommitted myself to looking at devotional prayers, including the rosary. And thought that it was a good time to really focus on that and began kind of press the reset button on my relationship to God, and try to do much better in that regard.
So, I had been doing reading and thinking and pondering about different devotions, and it started from a rosary daily. I’ve been inspired for a story of a woman who – her and she and her husband had survived for 14 hours in a hotel room in India, those terrorist’s attacks back in late last year, and I recalled those. And I read a story about this, she prayed the rosary for 12 hours straight as the terrorist walk up and down the hotel floors, knocking through doors and literally killing anyone if they found. And they miraculously survived that as her husband was able to connect back home with his laptop computer under the bed, it was an amazing story. And that really made me think about the rosary and the power of it. I remember the 15 promises that were supposedly attached to devoting the rosary.
So, I started that devotion that led to other things, and by the time January 15th came around, I had gotten into a daily routine of meditation and prayer. And the trip up to New York was a last minute decision, the day before on 14th and it’s gone up there, literally made the decision that day. There was a meeting that I felt were important for me for attend in person. And the meetings went well and everything was normal. And then, I came back the next day and the rest is, is history. But I will also say prior to boarding the flight, due to the last minute nature of my decision to fly up there, I had, had to cancel many meetings in rearrangement schedule. So, that *afforded* [05:37] me an unusual amount of I suppose discretionary time on January 15th. And after I finished my meetings downtown, I made my way to *** [05:46] I was in the proximity of St. Patriarch Cathedral and it was about right 12 ‘o clock. And I always like visiting St. Patriarch’s when I would travel to New York, but typically I wouldn’t be able to make it over there. And I time that day, I had a conference call at 1 ‘o clock, if I will I can stop by and go to St. Patriarch’s and I made it to the 12 ‘o clock mass. I thought I’d finish up and get in the cab and get on the conference call, make it to the airport and be on my way to Charlotte. So, I was able to attend mass that day. And I was coming out of the cathedral, I saw a gift shop across the street and at a few minutes, and went in the gift shop and I purchased Vinny’s book, which is what led to my sending him that e-mail, Seven of the Eucharist. And that I thought it was a very insightful book, read a bit of that.
And just as we were waiting forward and as we began to off and just as I started to relax, think about the work day and think about different things, think about what I had read in Vinny’s book. I had literally just sort of closed my eyes and was just thinking, and that’s when the bird struck the plane. And that sort began the sequence of 6 minutes of my life that seemed to last in eternity and I had described it to *** [07:16] on with my CNN interview following a crash. And it was 6 minutes of a lot sleeping and a lot happening, I can tell you that.
Chris Cash: So, now there were some connections in this to divine mercy as far as the time the plane went down. And did you want to bring out some of that?
Fred Berretta: Yes, there were. One of the things that I had been able to do by sheer happened in the end, the day before is I had mentioned when I flew up to New York and arrive there in the afternoon. I had about 30 minutes of free time which doesn’t sound like a lot, but certainly during the work day that’s a lot. And I really had returned e-mails and phone calls, and I was sitting there in my hotel room and I thought okay I’d get 30 minutes here what should I do? That was a good time to maybe clean up my briefcase, something I don’t tend to do quite a bit. And I found in a pocket, an inside pocket there was an enclosed was *** [08:17] with a zip right down, there is a booklet of divine mercy that I carried around quite a long. And I literally forgot that it’s been in there. In keeping with my New Year’s resolution, I felt well, its – I’ve got time to pray in this chapel and I have devotion. I had learned about 15 years ago as I reentered the Catholic faith; I’ve been away from the church much my youth and adult life and reentered in. And as I did that I learned about the devotions including the divine mercy.
And it happened to me during the 3 ‘o clock hour, it was perhaps around 3:30 or so and I prayed the chapel and I just sort of glanced through the little booklet and reflected on some of the quotations from Saint Faustina’s diary. And incidentally, the last one that I reflected on towards the end of the booklet was the one where Christ says to Faustina that the 3 ‘o clock hour is the special hour, the hour of his crucifixion, death and nothing would be refused in that hour to – and so praise for mercy. And I remember thinking about that and how powerful that was and it’s sort of effected me. That literally was the last thought I had before I kind of moved on in my – back into my work day and went on to several meetings that afternoon and evening. And I did think about that, but as I was going down to the Hudson that thought occurred to me that it is the 3 ‘o clock hour and I did – I didn’t have time to pray in the chapel of course and I knew that. But I felt my chances of dying were quite good. Commercial airliners don’t typically crash, landing into rivers and with no fatalities. So, I felt that I had about a 50 percent chance at best of surviving. And I thought about that prayer, thought about that promise, I thought about my wife and asked God to be merciful to us. And sort of contemplated the image on the booklet, divine mercy image and said some other prayers, and thought about my family and thought about my relationship with God and how I was wanting and that I needed to be even commit more. And I really just wanted more time; I felt like to speak to God. I go to monthly confession; I had been to mass that day. To tell you Chris, I really thought God was preparing me to die that was my thought. I felt a certain peace about it and Vinny’s book was comforting. As I just been to mass, but I was really hoping desperately and deeply that I can somehow make through with this. And to recommit, I did my priorities more and more in line and they worked.
Chris Cash: Now, I have a question from a commercial airline pilot by the name of Mike Green. And he wanted to know if you had seen Gods hand in helping you to be a vessel for spreading the message of hope and mercy from the divine mercy?
Fred Berretta: Well, I think it’s interestingly coincidental that I by *** [12:23] is rediscovered perhaps or we thought of the divine mercy chapel and the day before during that timeframe. And the full flight took place during the 3 ‘o clock hour from the pushback from the gate, which was I believe at 3:00 or 3:00 P.M. to when I does not refer though, which was at 3:48, virtually that entire incident occurred during that hour. I think there is something to that. I thought a great deal about it, and I still think a great deal about that. And I like to believe that my prayers helped. I did pray like that, and I know others did. I saw other people praying, people of Christian faith or the people perhaps not of Christian faith praying. And I think the combination of that had an influence, I absolutely believe that. I think it would be somewhat arrogant or very proud of me think that is pray alone affected the whole outcome. I know that God and its great mercy with one very saintly person praying without doubt can accomplish wonders, I am of course not that saintly person. And but I like to think my prayers helped. And I do find it all very interesting that for me personally, I know that I need to think very seriously the promise of mercy and think about that devotion. And do what I can to perhaps in my own small way to help others have confidence in the mercy of God.
It’s a humbling thing I thought, I don’t merit speaking about the Catholic faith, I have tried for many, many years to live a full robust Catholic life. And as all of us know that are trying and its challenging, it’s very challenging to do. I know that the previous 15 years, leading up to flight 1549, I was trying – I would say it was half hearted effort, not that I was since in the effort, but I just wasn’t giving it my full heart and my full mind and my full strength, but I thought I was. And after flight 1549 for me personally I see it very clearly in retrospect where eternally and externally, I was feeling with respect to the Catholic standards and Catholic ideals, notwithstanding all my efforts. And I think one of lessons and there are many Chris for me in this whole episode. But one of them is that I was trying to be too self reliant and thinking even if it’s the possibly that I could make it through on my own that I could somehow whether all the storms, and it’s very hard to see that.
Its very easy face and I think for all of us to fall into. I think its particularly this easy confession to fall into what’s here in the environment of a large corporate type structure, complex type of environment with as many, many things that are *falling* [16:25] at you and demanding for perfect performance from you. It’s easy to fall into that over a long periods of time. And I think I did, and that’s one of the crystal clear messages for me that I tried to really think about that. If you really have to do your best – I know someone said this long ago and let God to the rest, and the yes, a lot other – yes, it’s to do our best. But it’s to try and turn over to him, things can work out. And I think another lesson for me is as long as life, which is – and I described it this way in previous interview, I think there’s a lot of symbolism to what happened in flight 1549 and how God’s mercy is available to us.
In that, we lost *** [17:23] power and captain Sullenberger was safe with having to make incredibly difficult timely but important decision, which was where is he going to glide this airplane. He had choices, he had options. He ruled out LaGuardia and he ruled out Teterboro, and he chooses the least likely option. But it was the most optical option, which was landing that plane in the river, which all pilots know is the last place you want to try to land an airplane is on a busy waterway unless you have to.
So, he had to make a decision and then he had to execute very well, and he did all those things. And people on that plane were praying I know people that saw the plane going down were praying, I have heard testimony of that. And if you think about that you – to me the other great lesson is if humans do their best, make good decisions, take all their skills and experience what is there, and also then rely on Gods help in the worst circumstances, miracles will happen *** [18:50] that. And I think there is a bit of symbolism there with this airplane crash, and there’s that stuff that I think a lot about.
Chris Cash: Okay, we’re going to take a short break here to hear from our sponsor, but we’ll be back in just a minute to hear for more from Fred Berretta on the Catholic Spotlight.
[Break]
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Chris Cash: And we’re back on the Catholic Spotlight talking with Fred Berretta, survivor of flight 1549, the miracle on the Hudson. And Fred, I just wanted to talk to you a little about in what ways have your – has your life changed since the incident?
Fred Berretta: Well, I’ve been asked a question a few times Chris, the first time I was asked that actually was by a catholic reporter here in Charlotte, and I really thought a lot about that question. And my response at that time was I wasn’t sure it was shortly after the crash how my life has been changed. I knew that I had been changed in some ways, perhaps *** [22:19], I didn’t fully understand. But the way I answered it was, I feel – I felt and feel a very deep sense of gratitude to and survive that that we all survived that type of incident, because unfortunately there are most plane crashes in that type of situation without engine power and landing on a busy city don’t end up in that way. And it’s very humbling, and it’s something that instilled me a very profound appreciation for the value of life, the value of time, and what I’m doing with my life and my time. And I just feel obligated almost too consistently improve my life. I felt as best as I can and share that gratitude. I don’t fully know how to do that, I don’t know what I’m supposed to do with that, but it is constantly humbling me and making me very reflective of the great gift that we all have, of time and being with our families, friends, work associates. So, I know that I had a significant change, in one of the ways that I describe it as that I know I’m the same weak man that I was before, but I don’t believe I’m the same person.
Chris Cash: Are you in contact with any of the other survivors of the crash and or do you know any stories of some of the other people? And ways things have changed for them?
Fred Berretta: We have stayed in contact, their e-mail on *** [24:15] and Facebook site and there have been get-togethers. And I know it had a deep effect on all the passengers that I have come in contact with in a variety of ways, perhaps some are more profound than others, but all that I have come in contact with are effected. And I think that’s typically normal of something like this. And that’s of course, that’s inspiring to me when I hear other passengers telling me they’re spending more time in their church or just giving more to themselves, or they’ve reached out and talked to a long lost friend or loved one. That really helps me a lot. And so, yes, we’ve stayed in contact, hopefully we’ll continue to do so.
Chris Cash: We’ve run out of time for today, was there anything else that you want to share with our listeners about Vinny’s book or your experience?
Fred Berretta: Well, in regard to Vinny’s book, I am incredibly impressed with it. I had of course objectively understood, transcension and what do you first give. While from reading this book, it’s really in plain language helped me even my faith and understanding and appreciation were a great gift of the Eucharist that we have, so I’m grateful for that. And the only other thing, I suppose I would share Chris is that the remarkable ability for God to perform through us in our lives should never be underestimated. And I think all we have to do is trust just a little bit and what is given in return is so much more, we may not realize it at that exact moment, but it will come if we are persistent, interesting. And it’s never doubting in the providence, the mercy of God and it’s really incidental and therefore it’s all the time.
Chris Cash: Well, thank you so much Fred for coming on over and sharing that with us. And for those of you out there who are listening to this show, please be sure to go on over and vote for us on podcast Alley. We got this new initiative trying to help all Catholic podcast get higher up in the rankings on the podcast sight, so that we can help to evangelize and reach out to more people. You can find a list of other podcast and their podcast Alley voting sites over at Catholicspotlight.com/vote. And thank you all of you out there who have listened to us for all our part of our last 100 episodes, it is for you that we have made it this far, and it is because of you that we have been able to make it this far. So, thank you so much all of you for helping us to continue to do this and hopefully in another couple of years, we’ll be up at 200 and still go on.
Fred, I appreciate you being here. I know you’ve got a busy schedule, so thank you so much for taking your time to share with us.
Fred Berretta: Sure. Thank you, Chris. It’s been a pleasure.
Chris Cash: All right, God bless.
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Transcript of Interview with Fred Berretta about Flight 1549. This interview and others like it can be found at http://www.catholicspotlight.com
Listen Now to the audio version of the show.
7 Secrets of the Eucharist at The Catholic Company.
http://www.catholiccompany.com/catholic-books/1001090/7-Secrets-Eucharist/