The 9/11 parallels are an undercurrent of the entire film, and specifically mentioned by a character once, but some have still questioned the decision to include such a scene.
It appears the studio wasn’t blind to the situation but WB’s distribution chief Jeff Goldstein tells The Hollywood Reporter that they ultimately decided to go forward.
The opening sequence of Sully is actually a dream sequence in which Chesley Sullenberger, played by Tom Hanks, considers what might have happened had he tried to return to the airport, rather than landing the plane in the Hudson River.
In the dream, everything goes terribly wrong and the plane crashes into skyscrapers.