Not all heroes wear capes, and not all angels have wings.

[Mr Invisible]

This is Tammie Jo Schults.

One of the first female fighter pilots in the US Navy and first to fly an F-18. As the Navy did not allow women to fly in combat (at the time) she became a flight instructor, and resigned in 1993 to join Southwest Airlines.

She is also a hero, and one you should hear much more about in coming days.

Why?

On Tuesday morning the Boeing 737-700, which took off from New York's La Guardia Airport for Dallas was traveling at 32,500ft when the engine on the left side of the plane exploded.

Passengers said they heard a loud 'boom' and the plane immediately dropped, they said, by what felt like 100ft.

As the engine exploded, shrapnel drawn towards the plane smashed a window. When the shrapnel pierced the window, it depressurized the cabin and triggered the oxygen masks.

The woman sitting next to the smashed window was drawn towards it and others next to her held her down for 12 minutes until the plane landed.

Twelve people were injured in the midair explosion, with seven treated at the scene for minor injuries, while the woman who was sucked out the plane, was immediately taken to hospital. The woman (mother of two Jennifer Riordan sadly passed away later in hospital).

The plane landed as they descended at 3,000ft per minute until they leveled out at 10,000ft.

Despite the crisis on board, Schults was calm as she told Air Traffic Control: 'So we have a part of the aircraft missing.'

Asked if the plane was on fire, she said: 'No, it's not on fire but part of it's missing. They said there is a hole and someone went out.' She added that 'we have injured passengers' as she requested medical staff to meet them on landing. Passengers say that after landing the plane, the pilot took the time to speak to all those aboard personally.

'Tammie Jo Schults, the pilot came back to speak to each of us personally,' Diana McBride Self wrote.

Despite the chaos in the air, others said the emergency landing was fairly calm and smooth.

One passenger told CNN: 'It was a stable landing. We started descending, made the turn back to Philadelphia.

'We were with one engine for maybe 10 minutes.

'We decreased altitude from 8,000 to 5,000 and then when we finally landed it was relatively smooth, kind of a typical landing so the crew and the pilots did a fantastic job.'


Her calm actions and expertise helped save an entire planeload of passengers. It could have been far worse.

Whilst it is sad the passing of one lady, my thoughts are with her friends and family.

 

[Wahesh]

Sadly, the woman who was semi-sucked out from the window has died. But very good work from this lady.

 

[Memberberries]

A female Sully?

 

[Bad Billy]

Planes are designed to fly with one engine and a decompressed cabin.
The tanks weren’t damaged, nor were the control surfaces, or the landing gear.
Apart from the massive levels of stress in that situation, the act of landing the plane would’ve been pretty straightforward.
Nothing like having to land an engine-less plane in a river.