New Delhi, July 15 -- an early-stage diagnosis of Alzheimer's disease.

Sullenberger, 75, shared the news in a statement on social media, first given to People magazine. His announcement was notable not for what it concealed but for how it was framed - not as a retreat from public life, but as an extension of the role he has occupied since January 2009, when US Airways Flight 1549 was struck by a flock of Canada geese over the Bronx, both engines failed, and he guided the aircraft to a water landing on the Hudson River without a single fatality.

"It is early stage," Sullenberger wrote in his statement. "For now, this means a name may not come easily to me, I forget a story I have recently told, or I don't sleep as well, but I am in the b...