NIGHTMARE IN THE SKY
Passengers describe moment woman was sucked partly out window
After a piece of a ruptured engine shattered the window next to her, Jennifer Riordan (above) was pulled through the opening — with only her seat belt keeping her half inside. Passengers on Tuesday’s La Guardia-to-Dallas flight describe the panicked moments at 32,000 feet, and the efforts to save Riordan, who later died from her injuries.
The veteran Southwest Airlines pilot hailed as a hero for safely landing her crippled 737 honed her “nerves of steel” as one of the first women to fly an F/A-18 Hornet for the US Navy — after she had been turned down by the Air Force.
Capt. Tammie Jo Shults, 56, kept her cool even as she told air-traffic controllers that passenger Jennifer Riordan had been partially sucked out of the depressurized cabin through a blown-out window, audio recordings reveal.
“[Passengers] said there’s a hole, and, uh, someone went out,” Shults can be heard calmly relaying to controllers at Philadelphia International Airport.
“She was nerves of steel,” said Alfred Tumlinson, one of the 144 passengers and five crew members aboard Flight 1380.
“That lady, I applaud her,” Tumlinson told The Associated Press. “I’m going to send her a Christmas card . . . with a gift certificate for getting me on the ground. She was awesome.”
For Shults, that grace under been a lifetime in the making.
“During my senior year of high school in 1979, I attended a vocational day where I heard a retired colonel give a lecture on aviation,” Shults told author Linda L. Maloney for the book “Military Fly Moms.” “He started the class by asking me, the fire had only girl in attendance, if I was lost.”
“I mustered up the courage to assure him I was not, and that I was interested in flying,” Shults said. “He allowed me to stay, but assured me there were no professional women pilots.”
Out of college, Shults was rejected by the Air Force — which did offer her brother a chance to enlist. After more than a year of trying, Shults, of Texas, caught on with the Navy in 1983 and stayed 10 years, becoming one of the first women to fly an F/A-18 fighter.
In a statement released Wednesday night by Southwest, Shults said she and her crew “were simply doing our jobs” and their “hearts are heavy” over Riordan’s death.