Episode 745 - Tammie Jo Schults

What if the worst moment of your life was actually the one you were born for? This week, Phil recounts the terrifying story of Captain Tammie Jo Shults, who faced a catastrophic mid-air explosion at 32,000 feet with "nerves of steel." While passengers prepared for the end, Shults’ legendary composure saved 148 lives.

The real mystery isn't just how she landed the plane; it’s how a "career-ending" punishment she received thirty years earlier became the only reason those passengers survived. Shults spent decades being told she didn't belong in the cockpit, yet she turned every rejection into a masterclass in survival. If you’ve ever felt sidelined or blocked, this episode will change how you view your obstacles forever.

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Transcript

Top performers in every field surround themselves with those who inspire them, who seek to build them up, and who push them to reach beyond their current limits. I am Phil Buchanan, executive chairman of Cannon Financial Institute. I designed Monday Morning Mojo to provide you with a weekly spark, a push and motivational insight to live your best life.

Thanks for joining. Good Monday morning, Cannon Nation. It is Phil here with episode 745 of Monday Morning Mojo. Last month, the month of March, we celebrated Women's History Month. But today we celebrate another great female American. On April 17th, 2018, Southwest Flight 1 3 8 0, lifted smoothly into the morning sky, leaving New York behind bound for Dallas, Texas.

At the controls of the Boeing 7 37 set, captain Tammy Joe Schultz, guiding the aircraft towards its cruising altitude of 32,000 feet. It was the perfect morning. Everything was routine. The kind of flight that Ms. Schultz had flown thousands of time. Then abruptly, the left engine detonated. The explosion was so violent that Captain Schultz thought the aircraft had collided with another plane Midair.

Metal shrapnel tore through the Fusel lodge. A passenger window shattered the cabin depressurized instantly. Air screaming outward with terrifying force. Passenger Jennifer Rearden was partially pulled towards the broken window. Other passengers lunged for her fighting the suction with their own bodies desperately holding on oxygen mass dropped the aircraft rolled sharply left and dove smoke poured into the cockpit.

The noise was overwhelming. Wind shrieking through a wounded airplane drowning out nearly every sound. I. Below them. 148 passengers believed they were about to die. Some typed final messages to their families. Flight attendants shouted instructions through the rising panic, the plane felt as if it was coming apart.

And then from the cockpit, a voice came over the radio. Tammy Joe Schultz, ever calm and even. Southwest 1380. We're single engine. We have part of the aircraft missing, so we're gonna need to slow down a bit. Air traffic control asked if the aircraft was on fire. No, she replied. It's not on fire, but part of it is missing.

They said there's a hole and someone went out. Her pulse barely rose. Her hands stayed steady while chaos consumed the cabin. She did what she had been trained to do, fly the plane. That calm did not appear by accident. It was forged over decades by being told she didn't belong. Tammy Jo Schultz grew up on a ranch near to Rosa, New Mexico, close to Holman Air Force Base.

As a child, she lay in the grass watching fighter jets carve white contraras across an endless blue sky. She wanted to be up there in high school. She attended an aviation lecture, a retired air force. Colonel opened the class by asking if she was lost. She was the only girl in the room I wanna fly. She said he told her the truth as he saw it.

There were no professional women pilots, girls didn't fly fighter jets. It simply wasn't possible. She tried joining the Air Force Recruiters turned her away three times. They deeded pilots, just not women pilots. She tried the Navy. She aced the interest exam. An officer refused to process her application anyway.

He said she had scored high enough for a man, but not high enough for a woman. It took a full year to find a recruiter willing to submit her paperwork. In 1985, she finally entered Naval Aviation Officer Candidate School. She earned her wings. She became a flight instructor. She flew the A seven Corsair two.

Eventually she became one of the first women to fly the FA 18 Hornet Fighter Jet. Even then, barriers remain combat exclusion. Rules barred women from contact missions. Her husband also a naval aviator, could deploy, she could not. Despite identical training and identical skills, she became an instructor pilot and aggressor flying against the Navy's elite students to sharpen their readiness.

Then came an assignment designed to sideline her. A commanding officer openly refused to allow a woman to teach advanced weapons and gunnery tactics. He pulled her from the role and reassigned her. It was meant as a punishment, a career dead end, teaching pilots how to recover aircraft when everything goes wrong, when a plane is spinning rolling, diving beyond limits.

When instruments fail, when control is lost. She spent a year teaching others how to survive the worst moments imaginable. Later she would say, I learned I don't have to be in control all the time to get back into control. That punishment. Would go on to save 148 lives. In 1993, she left the Navy and joined Southwest Airlines for 25 years.

She flew thousands of routine flights. Nothing remarkable. That is, of course, until April 17th, 2018, when the engine exploded, she knew instantly how catastrophic it was. Systems failed. Warning lights scream. The aircraft fought every input like a wounded animal. For a brief moment, she recalls, she thought, this might be the day that I die.

Then her training took over not just airline training, but that punishment assignment decades earlier. She flew by field. She initiated an emergency descent dropping more than 20,000 feet in mere minutes. She lined up for Philadelphia. The aircraft was barely controllable. One engine destroyed. Part of the Fusel Lodge gone.

Hydraulics compromised, but she did what she was trained to do. She landed the plane. Emergency crews were stunned. A paramedic told her she had the nerves of steel. Her heart rate had barely risen. Unfortunately, Jennifer Rearden did die from her injuries. She was a fatality, but every other passenger lived after landing.

Tammy Joe Schultz walked the aisle of the plane. She hugged passengers. She shook hands. She looked people in the eye and told them they were safe. Captain Sully Sullenberger personally called to commend her. Three weeks later. She did what only pilots do. She was back in the cockpit. Tammy, Joe Schultz retired in 2020, but still flies privately and volunteers transporting medical patients and families in need.

The world once told her she didn't belong in aviation. Recruiters dismissed her. Commanders tried to sideline her policies, borrowed her from missions she had trained for, but the sky, the sky never agreed. They had once told her that girls didn't become fighter pilots. Oh, she became one. They said women couldn't handle high stress crisis.

She proved otherwise again and again, and when an engine exploded at 32,000 feet, she spoke with a voice so calm it steadied everyone who heard it because she had spent her entire life being ready for that moment. Here's the irony. The assignment meant to end her career. The one designed to punish her, gave her the exact skills that saved 148 lives.

30 years later, a system tried to ground her. It tried to limit her. It tried to make her disappear. Instead accidentally, it made her indispensable. Just remember, sometimes the obstacles placed in your path aren't there to stop you. They are there to prepare you, and sometimes in the moment everyone fears well, that becomes the moment you've been training for your entire life.

Monday Morning Mojo is a production of Cannon Financial Institute, executive producer of Monday Morning Mojo is Sarah Jones. Editing and mixing is done by Danny Brunner. Until next time, I'm Phil Buchanan reminding you to be a force for good. Have a great week and thanks for being part of the Mojo community.