The female ex-Navy fighter pilot who saved more than 100 passengers on Southwest flight after the engine exploded at 32,000ft is being hailed as a hero today.
This is a true American Hero,’ wrote one of the passengers aboard the plane, ‘God bless her and all the crew.’
After the flight heading to Dallas suffered a mid-air explosion which caused a passenger to be almost sucked out a window, Tammie Jo Shults, a former Navy fighter pilot and one of the first women to fly an F-18, calmly brought the Southwest Flight 1380 to land at Philadelphia International.
Despite the crisis on board, Schults was calm as she told Air Traffic Control: ‘So we have a part of the aircraft missing.’
Twelve people were injured in the midair explosion, with seven treated at the scene for minor injuries and one woman is reported dead.
‘She has nerves of steel. That lady, I applaud her,’ said Alfred Tumlinson, of Corpus Christi, Texas. ‘I’m going to send her a Christmas card, I’m going to tell you that, with a gift certificate for getting me on the ground. She was awesome.’
