Tammie Jo Shults, Hero Southwest Pilot, Was Navy Fighter Jock

[mystery-ak]

Wednesday, 18 April 2018 07:17 AM



Tammie Jo Shults, the Southwest Airlines pilot who made an emergency landing Tuesday after the jet blew an engine, was praised for her "nerves of steel" in helping to prevent a far worse tragedy. Her experience includes being a Navy fighter pilot.

Shults was at the controls of the Dallas-bound Flight 1380 when it made an emergency landing in Philadelphia, said her husband, Dean Shults. She took the plane into a rapid descent as passengers using oxygen masks that dropped from the ceiling braced for impact.

more
https://www.newsmax.com/thewire/tammie-jo-shults-hero-southwest-pilot/2018/04/18/id/855134/

[thackney]

Looks like a missing fan blade in front of his forearm.



click for very large picture

[Weird Tolkienish Figure]

I still don't understand how that woman died?

[Frank Cannon]

I still don't understand how that woman died?

I'm thinking hanging out of a plane a 30000 feet might have something to do with it.

[thackney]

I still don't understand how that woman died?

https://www.cnn.com/2018/04/17/us/philadelphia-southwest-flight-emergency-landing/index.html

...The woman was sitting on the left side of the plane when something in the engine apparently broke and smacked into the window. She hung out the hole for many minutes, said Hollie Mackey, who sat next to the victim, and Amy Serafini, who was in the row behind the woman.

Many passengers kept trying to pull the woman back into the plane for a long time, until two men were able to get the woman back in her seat, they said.

A nurse answered a call for help and tried to do CPR....

...The injured woman's arms and body were sucked toward the opening in the plane, Martinez recalled in a phone interview. Objects flew out the hole where the window had been, and "passengers right next to her were holding onto her. And meanwhile, there was blood all over this man's hands. He was tending to her," said Martinez, who was sitting a row or two away from the woman.

Other passengers began trying to plug the hole with jackets and other objects but to no avail. Those items, too, were sucked out of the plane, he said....

There are reports of lots of blood although I don't see that in the cabin pictures taken afterwards.  Perhaps she was struck by the same piece that broke the window.

[Weird Tolkienish Figure]

I'm thinking hanging out of a plane a 30000 feet might have something to do with it.

I understand that but did she die of oxygen depletion or what?

[Weird Tolkienish Figure]

Looks like a missing fan blade in front of his forearm.



click for very large picture

My guess is that the blade snapped off, was caught up in the engine turbulence (which destroyed the engine shell in that circular motion) and then spun off into the cabin.

[Frank Cannon]

I understand that but did she die of oxygen depletion or what?

My first guess would be the violence of getting sucked out of a tiny airplane window. Second would be the wind bashing her head against the outside of the plane. Third would be the lack of oxygen.

[thackney]

My guess is that the blade snapped off, was caught up in the engine turbulence (which destroyed the engine shell in that circular motion) and then spun off into the cabin.

I have been in a building where an industrial jet engine had a compressor lose fan blades.  Holes were stitched around the building where each fan blade went through the walls.  Because of that, I never felt completely comfortable sitting in line with the engine.

The pictures show the damaged window much farther down the plane.  I suspect ~500 mph airspeed carried the blade backwards before striking the plane.

[driftdiver]

My first guess would be the violence of getting sucked out of a tiny airplane window. Second would be the wind bashing her head against the outside of the plane. Third would be the lack of oxygen.

@Frank Cannon
Lack of oxygen probably wasn't a factor.   https://flightaware.com/live/flight/SWA1380/history/20180417/1430Z/KLGA/KPHL

That link shows the airspeed and altitude.   She may have been unconscious without the supplemental O2 but there should be enough oxygen within a couple minutes after the event.  More likely it was the trauma.

[Frank Cannon]

More likely it was the trauma.

All you have to do is look at the red stain behind the broken window to see that was probably the case. Shit, people die in low speed car crashes without seatbelts if they smack the windshield. That plane business was that times 10.

[thackney]

All you have to do is look at the red stain...

I'm not seeing that, have you seen a different photo?

https://dallasnews.imgix.net/1524014327-Southwestwindow.jpg

https://media.nbcphiladelphia.com/images/987*1317/Southwest+1380+PHL+Broken+Window+23.jpg

[Rivergirl]

Southwest hired Sully and Tammie Jo.................All of us can be thankful for their hiring practices.
These two pilots saved many lives.........more than counted since it's not only the passengers but their families as well.

[Frank Cannon]

I'm not seeing that, have you seen a different photo?

https://dallasnews.imgix.net/1524014327-Southwestwindow.jpg

https://media.nbcphiladelphia.com/images/987*1317/Southwest+1380+PHL+Broken+Window+23.jpg

Look at the picture of the exterior of the plane you posted.

[driftdiver]

I'm not seeing that, have you seen a different photo?

https://dallasnews.imgix.net/1524014327-Southwestwindow.jpg

https://media.nbcphiladelphia.com/images/987*1317/Southwest+1380+PHL+Broken+Window+23.jpg

@thackney
If you look to the top left of the picture you will see a slight red tint to the cabin interior.   I didn't catch it before but would guess the 500mph wind blew the blood back.  That would explain why we don't see the seat covered in it.   

The passengers behind that seat were probably all covered in it.

One story i read indicated she was hit in the head by debris.

[driftdiver]

Look at the picture of the exterior of the plane you posted.

Yeah on the exterior picture there is a red haze stretching back about 10 windows.  The planes speed was 506mph when this happened and stayed there for about 3 minutes following the accident. 

In other news approximately 102 people died yesterday in car accidents.  Flying commercial is still safer.

[thackney]

Look at the picture of the exterior of the plane you posted.

Thank you.

A better outside picture below.  Faint staining seen.

http://static5.businessinsider.com/image/5ad665a01b60b435008b45c6-1777/rtx5rtik.jpg

[driftdiver]

Thank you.

A better outside picture below.  Faint staining seen.

http://static5.businessinsider.com/image/5ad665a01b60b435008b45c6-1777/rtx5rtik.jpg

That could also be from the brief fire or perhaps fluid from the engine.

[rangerrebew]

Tammie Jo Shults, who landed crippled Southwest plane, was one of first female fighter pilots in U.S. Navy
 
by Elizabeth Chuck and Shamar Walters / Apr.18.2018 / 11:00 AM ET / Updated Apr.18.2018 / 10:31 PM ET
 

The pilot who coolly landed a crippled Southwest Airlines plane after a blown engine sent shrapnel through one of the jet's windows midflight has gone against the odds before.

Identified by The Associated Press as Tammie Jo Shults, she wasted no time rapidly lowering the plane toward safety when chaos broke out shortly after takeoff Tuesday from New York — maintaining her composure even as passengers reported from the cabin that a woman had been partly sucked out of a shattered window.

https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/tammie-jo-shults-who-landed-crippled-southwest-plane-was-one-n866951

[catfish1957]

I think this is the first passenger fatality in SWA history.  Amazing record that sadly just ended/

[thackney]

How Southwest pilot Tammie Jo Shults stayed calm in the cockpit
https://www.pbs.org/newshour/show/how-southwest-pilot-tammie-jo-shults-stayed-calm-in-the-cockpit

...hauntingly parallel incident that happened, same airline, same type of aircraft, same type of engine, in August of 2016.

The only difference is, nobody got hurt. The aircraft got on the ground safely, but exactly the same thing happened, with metal fatigue as the cause, and that fan blade being spit out like a hot, fast piece of shrapnel.

Subsequent to that, the manufacturer of the engine, CFM, which is a joint venture between GE and the French jet engine maker Safran, sent out a service bulletin to the airlines who had these engines and said, hey, you probably should do some ultrasound testing of these fan blades to make sure there are no cracks, because they’re not necessarily visible.

Southwest was among the airlines who resisted that call and said they just needed more time to do it and had not done those inspections.

So, the truth is, if the FAA, the NTSB had acted quicker and with more urgency after that first event in August 2016, this event might not have happened....