Former Navy fighter pilot Tammie Jo Shults is being hailed as a hero for her calm, commanding display of bravery as she safely landed a Southwest Airlines jet on Tuesday after it blew an engine at 30,000 feet. The explosion caused a window to break and the cabin to depressurize, sucking a passenger partially out of the plane. The audio containing conversations between the cockpit of Southwest Flight 1380 and air traffic controllers reveal the moment crews were notified of the extent of the damage after the jet blew an engine.

Shults was among the first female fighter pilots in the U.S. military.

Passenger Jennifer Riordan, a banking executive was killed after she was partially sucked out a window that had been smashed by debris from the blown engine on the Southwest flight, forcing the jet to make an emergency landing. Philadelphia’s medical examiner said the fatality of she died of blunt impact trauma to her head, neck and torso. The depressurization caused items that were not secured to be sucked out of the window she was also sucked into.

 

These are the reactions of other passengers during and after the landing:

 

Filed under: Airplanes, News, safety, Southwest