Tammie Jo Shults
Originally published in 2021
Retired Southwest Airlines pilot Tammie Jo Shults has taken her place next to some of the giants of human flight, including Buzz Aldrin, Charles Lindbergh and Howard Hughes, after being inducted Dec. 10, 2020, into the International Air & Space Hall of Fame in San Diego.
Shults, who was a female pioneer as a U.S. Navy pilot, is best known as the captain piloting Southwest Airlines Flight 1380 in April 2018 when a piece of fan blade broke off, tore apart the engine and broke out a window in the Boeing 737 cabin. The engine damage caused dangerous decompression aboard the plane and pulled a passenger, Jennifer Riordan, partially out of the window and caused her death.
Despite the hazardous conditions amid the unstable aircraft, Shults and First Officer Darren Ellisor calmly piloted the Dallas-bound plane to Philadelphia International Airport and no one else on the plane was seriously injured.