Thysla

Captain Tammie Jo Shults wasn’t supposed to fly that plane that day. But her husband, Dean, a fellow Southwest Airlines pilot, knew their son had a track meet at the end of the week and Tammie Jo coached him in the throwing events. So, like he’d done so many other times, Dean switched their schedules to make sure she could get back in time. That’s how Tammie Jo Shults ended up piloting Southwest flight 1380. The runways at New York’s LaGuardia Airport are usually a mess of congestion, but that morning, April 17, 2018, Shults and First Officer Darren Ellisor were cleared for takeoff before they even got to the runway. Within minutes, the Boeing 737-700 was up into the clear spring sky, heading for Dallas. The New York City skyline faded behind them. The trip was supposed to take about three and a half hours. About 20 minutes in, though, as they climbed past 32,000 feet somewhere over Eastern Pennsylvania, there was a sudden, life-changing explosion. In the cockpit, it felt like another plane had hit them on the left. They were thrown sideways with a force Shults had never experienced, even in simulators, and now they could feel the plane skidding through the air. Then everything started shuddering so hard they couldn’t read the instruments. The whole world was a violent blur. Within seconds, the aircraft was diving toward the earth and starting to roll. That’s how Shults knew they’d lost an engine. Nobody in the main cabin could have known what an extraordinary person was captaining the plane. Shults had flown for Southwest for more than 20 years by then. Before that, she’d been one of the first few female fighter pilots in the Navy, a station she achieved through incredible skill, determination, and grace. She’s also a mother of two and longtime Sunday school teacher from Boerne, a quaint town in the Hill Country. As she and Ellisor struggled to get the plane upright, Shults noticed smoke coming in from the air conditioning system. She could barely breathe. She didn’t know it at the time, but a window in row 14 had blown out behind a wing, and the cabin was quickly depressurizing. The sound was a blistering, unconquerable roar, like ice picks through the eardrums of everyone on board. There was also a cockpit alarm blaring, warning them about the loss of oxygen. At this point, nobody in the crew knew what happened or how far the plane could fly, but Shults knew they needed to land as soon as possible. Ellisor spotted the Philadelphia airport on the radar, about 50 miles away. It was familiar: Southwest flies to Philadelphia, so both the captain and first officer had landed there hundreds of times. Philadelphia also has long runways, emergency medical capabilities, and a metropolitan fire department. In a calm, firm voice, Shults told the passengers that they were landing there. In the first five minutes, the plane descended about 19,000 feet, at a rate more than twice as fast as usual. They were near 8,000 feet when the flight attendants told the cockpit what had happened in row 14. “Is your airplane physically on fire?” the air traffic controller asked. “No, it’s not on fire,” Shults said, as composed as someone chatting about the weather. “But part of it’s missing. Shults continued: “They said there’s a hole and someone went out.” “Um, I’m sorry,” the air traffic controller replied. “You said there’s a hole and somebody went out?” With only one engine, limited power, and a strong drag to the left, Shults knew she’d only have one chance to approach the runway. As she lined up to land, the cockpit voice recorder caught her saying, softly, “Heavenly Father.” Reports would later show that a fan blade in the engine under the left wing had spontaneously failed, leading to the catastrophic explosion. Here’s how Ellisor later put it: “Tammie Jo is more than a hero; she is a role model to young and old, in her community and across the country.” Shults was back in the air a few weeks later. She missed flying.