It’s a plane shame.
A Manhattan community board shot down a proposal Wednesday to rename part of West 50th Street near 11th Avenue after Capt. Chesley “Sully” Sullenberger — the retired pilot who landed a US Airways flight with 155 passengers in the Hudson River on Jan. 15, 2009.
And they suggested renaming the river after Sully instead.
“Although we do applaud his heroic efforts of landing a plane on the Hudson, he did not land it on West 50th Street,” Community Board 4’s Transportation Planning Committee cochair Jesse Greenwald said in denying the request.
“We did vote down the application, recommending that perhaps a memorial or a plaque close to the Hudson River — or even a renaming of the Hudson — would be more appropriate,” Greenwald added.
A publicist for the legendary aviator had floated the idea to honor Sullenberger, 72, at a Manhattan CB4 meeting on Sept. 20 ahead of the 15th anniversary of the “Miracle on the Hudson” landing.
“We’d be honoring Sully and crew, all the first responders, and all 155 passengers who survived this miracle — connecting the neighborhood to this very significant event in NYC history,” Hiltzik Strategies senior advisor Linda Lipman told The Post Thursday.
Lipman, a former New Yorker now living in New Jersey, said she was “disappointed” by the board’s final decision, but the push to publicly recognize Sullenberger isn’t over. The unmoved Hell’s Kitchen committee suggested Lipman contact officials at the Hudson River Park Trust instead.
“And conversations have started there on a ‘Miracle on the Hudson’ 15th anniversary commemoration,” she continued.
In her presentation to CB4, Lipman hailed Sullenberger as a “true hero” whose illustrious three-decade career as a commercial pilot was recognized in January with the renaming of a Charlotte aviation museum in his honor.
The US Airways Airbus A320 that landed in the Hudson is now housed at Sullenberger Aviation Museum, formerly known as the Carolinas Aviation Museum, Lipman said.
Minutes after taking off from LaGuardia Airport, the plane headed for North Carolina struck a flock of geese and lost power to both engines. Capt. Sullenberger decided he didn’t have time to return to Queens or get to New Jersey’s Teterboro Airport, so he glided the disabled aircraft onto the Hudson River, roughly opposite West 50th Street. All passengers and crew survived.
In 2009, an NTSB board member told The Post Sully’s maneuver “has to go down the most successful ditching in aviation history.” Year laters, actor Tom Hanks portrayed Sullenberger, who retired in 2010, in “Sully,” a 95-minute thriller directed by Clint Eastwood.
Sullenberger, who could not be reached for comment Thursday, “just beamed” when Lipman sought permission his to request the Manhattan street renaming, she said.
Ric Elias, a US Airways Flight 1549 survivor and CEO of digital media company Red Ventures, donated $1 million to the North Carolina museum’s salute to Sullenberger. An exhibit on the dramatic trip originally destined for Charlotte has been open since 2011, but the new 105,000-square-foot facility is expected to open by the end of 2023.
“Flight 1549 changed the course of my life and gave me the ultimate gift of a second chance,” Elias said in January.
But Sullenberger’s daring and successful decision to splashdown in the Hudson didn’t meet the bar for Manhattan Community Board 4.
“Other than the latitude, it doesn’t feel very connected to the man,” Charles Todd of CB4’s Transportation Planning Committee said last month of the idea to rename West 50th Street for Sully.
Typically, efforts to rename city streets begin two years after a luminary dies, according to Todd, who also noted Sullenberger had no direct ties to the block despite its proximity to the Hudson.
“This didn’t happen on 50th Street, it happened on the river,” Todd said while acknowledging Sullenberger as a “clear” and universally admired American hero.
The vote against the proposed street renaming was unanimous, CB4 district manager Jesse Bodine said.
“We are still tallying votes but approximately 45 members voted in support of the recommendation to deny,” Bodine told The Post Thursday.
While Sullenberger didn’t make the cut, the street corner featured on The Beastie Boys’ iconic “Paul’s Boutique” rap album in 1989 was christened in September as “Beastie Boys Square.” The proposal, which was initially rejected, was approved in July 2022.
FDNY officials held a street renaming ceremony in Queens Wednesday for Capt. Alison Russo, 61, a medic who was fatally stabbed outside her stationhouse in September 2022. The stretch of 42nd Street between 19th and 20th streets is now known as “Captain Alison Russo Way.”
A street corner in Manhattan, meanwhile, was renamed last month for slain NYPD Det. Jason Rivera, who was gunned down with his partner, Wilbert Mora, while answering a 911 call in Harlem in January 2022. A Brooklyn street was renamed in July for Mora on what would have been his 29th birthday.