Heroic Female Pilot: Flying Planes Gives Me the Opportunity ‘to Witness for Christ on Almost Every Flight’
When the women of America or around the world want to look for a role model, they might want to start with Tammie Jo Shults, 56, the pilot who flew Southwest Flight 1380 to safety on Tuesday after part of its left engine ripped off, and a religious Christian who once said that piloting planes gave her the opportunity “to witness for Christ on almost every flight.”
The flight was supposed to fly from La Guardia Airport in New York City to Dallas Love airport, and because of the emergency situation had to land in Philadelphia. Shults was amazingly calm during the crisis, as audio below can testify. Meanwhile many passengers truly felt that they might die after they heard a huge boom and a window of the plane blew out, and they posted their fears on social media . . .
One passenger described the crisis on Instagram: “Our engine that blew out at 38000 ft. A window blew out, a man saved us all as he jumped to cover the window. … The pilot, Tammy Jo was so amazing! She landed us safely in Philly.”
Rejected at aviation career day at her high school because she was a girl, Shults enrolled at Mid America Nazarene University in veterinary medicine, but then . . . “In my junior year I went to an Air Force winging with a friend whose brother was getting his wings. And, lo, there was a girl in his class,” Shults recalls. Applying for the Air Force after she graduated, she was denied a test, but the Navy grabbed her, and she became one of their first female fighter and the first woman to fly F-18s . . .
A Navy magazine story published in 1993 noted Shults was a member of the Tactical Electronic Warfare Squadron (VAQ) 34. The story says that she had flown A-7 and F/A-18 aircraft. She said, “In AOCS (Aviation Officer Candidate School), if you’re a woman (or different in any way), you’re a high profile; you’re under more scrutiny.” She said that chances for women to gain knowledge in the aviation community were limited. “It would be nice if they would take away the ceilings (women) have over our heads,” she said. “In VAQ-34, gender doesn’t matter, there’s no advantage or disadvantage. Which proves my point – if there’s a good mix of gender, it ceases to be an issue.” [source]
(Read more from “Heroic Female Pilot: Flying Planes Gives Me the Opportunity ‘to Witness for Christ on Almost Every Flight'” HERE)
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