Southwest pilot whose plane suffered tragic engine failure speaks about military career at AirVenture

OSHKOSH – Tammie Jo Shults didn’t grow up in an aviation family or even a military one, but she first found her love for flying by reading a book about a martyred missionary pilot in Ecuador.

Growing up on a ranch in New Mexico, Shults said Wednesday night at EAA AirVenture that she didn’t have access to television, so books like “Jungle Pilot” — about missionary Nate Saint who was killed in 1956 — were an important influence on her decision to become a Navy aviator. She also watched jet planes take off and land at Holloman Air Force Base near her home.

Shults, 56, was captain of Southwest Airlines Flight 1380 on April 17 when a fan blade on the twin-engine Boeing 737 flying from New York to Dallas failed. Debris sprayed one side of the plane, piercing a window and causing the aircraft to decompress.

Passenger Jennifer Riordan was partially sucked through the window and died; eight other passengers suffered minor injuries. Meanwhile the plane rolled about 40 degrees before Shults and First Officer Darren Ellisor were able to bring it level and started emergency procedures as the plane was diverted to the Philadelphia airport.

Shults was commended for her calm actions during the emergency. It turned out she wasn’t scheduled to pilot that flight but had swapped shifts with her husband, whom she met in the Navy.

Shults, her husband and son are EAA members and although she was not available to the press during EAA AirVenture, she spoke Wednesday night in a panel of seven female military aviators. She didn’t talk about the April Southwest flight but spoke about how she chose aviation for a career and about her mentors.

When she decided to join the Navy, after the Air Force turned her down, “initially my dad said ‘nice girls don’t do that,’ ” Shults said. But her parents warmed to the idea and fully supported her decision to join the military.  

Most of her mentors were male because she was often the only female in her flight school class and later the units she served in. After becoming an ensign in 1985, she trained to fly the T-34 and earned her pilot’s wings. She became an instructor and served in the Tactical Electronic Warfare Squadron at the Pacific Missile Test Center.

Later, she qualified for the F/A-18 Hornet and became one of the first female pilots to fly that jet. When women were finally allowed to fly combat missions, “we faced a lot of push back,” she told the AirVenture audience. “F-18s had never been invaded by women before and there was some ‘it’s my sandbox’ ” from male pilots.

Shults served as a flight instructor for male aviators during the Gulf War and later served in the Navy Reserve, flying Hornets until August 2001. After leaving the Navy, she became a pilot for Southwest Airlines.