The captain gave them a room and told them they could get room service if they wished. The video of the rescue began circulating on social media.

The next day, they were able to take a commercial flight home.

“I wasn’t very comfortable but that might have been because pilots (as passengers still) generally like to have control of the plane,” Regensburg said.

After they arrived in Greensboro, members of their business group presented them with T-shirts reading: “I know you’re cool but are you ‘crash in the ocean and lived to tell it cool?’ ”

When the men think back to the crash, they now choke up talking about it. They both shed tears on the cruise ship, once they were safe.

Had it been at night, had they not had a parachute, they might not have drifted away from the wreckage without injury.

Regensburg thinks of what Capt. Chesley “Sully” Sullenberger must have thought after safely landing a much bigger aircraft with many more “souls” on board on the Hudson River.