Shults, a former fighter pilot with the U.S. Navy, remained calm and focused as her plane descended with 149 passengers on board the Boeing 737-700.

“Yes sir, we’re single engine, descending, have a fire, number one,” Shults told air traffic control.

The conversation continued for a few minutes as they tried to find Shults an emergency landing location. They agreed on Philadelphia.

“Is your airplane physically on fire?” asked a man with Philadelphia’s arrival sector.

“No it’s not on fire but part of it’s missing,” she calmly replied. “They said there’s a hole and someone went out.”

In the midst of the chaos, Shults successfully completed an emergency landing at the Philadelphia International Airport, sparing the lives of 148 people.

“She has nerves of steel,” passenger Alfred Tumlinson told the Associated Press. “That lady, I applaud her. I’m going to send her a Christmas card — I’m going to tell you that — with a gift certificate for getting me on the ground. She was awesome.”

“The pilot came back to speak to each of us personally,” Diana McBride Self wrote on Facebook with a photo of Shults. “This is a true American Hero. A huge thank you for her knowledge, guidance and bravery in a traumatic situation. God bless her and all the crew.”

Shults grew up in New Mexico, near Holloman Air Force Base. Watching the daily air shows, she knew she had to fly.

“Some people grow up around aviation. I grew up under it,” she said in the book Military Fly Moms.

Shults recalled attending a lecture on aviation during her senior year of high school, in 1979. A retired colonel started the class by asking Shults, the 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,” she wrote. “He allowed me to stay but assured me there were no professional women pilots.”

Shults was among the first female fighter pilots for the U.S. Navy, according to her alma mater, MidAmerica Nazarene University. She was also among the first women to fly an F/A-18 Hornet for the Navy.

Shults served in the Navy for 10 years.

Now, she flies for commercial airlines. There could not have been a more prepared pilot to handle the emergency landing during the traumatic Southwest flight.

Below is a video of Shults communicating with air traffic control when she realized the plane had lost an engine.

This article originally appeared on Sunny Skyz.

The post Meet The Former Fighter Pilot With ‘Nerves Of Steel’ Who Landed The Southwest Flight appeared first on Positive Celebrity News, Good Celebrity Gossip, Positive Entertainment News | Good Celebrity.

For 15 years, Stansel has battled chronic kidney disease, a sickness that hit it’s peak during a flight in March 2016.

“Just last March 10 – one year to the day – was my very last day at work. I had to take a passenger seat on the way home I was so sick,” she told Q13 Fox News.

“I can’t ever remember being so low,” she told ABC News.

Dialysis became part of her routine. But with her body failing, doctors told her she needed a kidney transplant to live. Cue Captain Jodi Harskamp.

Once strangers in the sky, Harskamp and Stansel built a bond after a house fire destroyed Harskamp’s home four years ago. Stansel lent a helping hand by cooking dinner for Harskamp and her family.

“Jenny was one of the first people to show up with this wonderful lasagna and some bottles of wine. She didn’t know me. I didn’t know her. She just said, ‘Here’s a lasagna and good luck,'” Harskamp told KIRO.

The pilot returned the gesture in a BIG way. When it was revealed that Harskamp was a perfect match, she jumped at the chance to help her friend despite that fact that losing one kidney could affect her career.

“There’s a small chance that I will never return to flying if my remaining kidney does not pick up the slack for my removed kidney,” Harskamp said.

“I’ve always said that my job is risk assessment, that’s what I do for a living, and I have determined that the reward in this is far greater than the risk,” she added.

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Despite undergoing a serious procedure (which took place Monday, March 13 at Swedish Medical Center in Seattle), the two women kept a jovial attitude while sharing their story to various news outlets.

“She had actually said, ‘I am going to serve you my kidney in an ice bucket on the drink cart,'” Stansel told Q13 referring to Harskamp’s kindness, while also adding that her cooking may have played a role in the pilot’s decision to donate.

“It was the lasagna. It was made with love,” she said.

As for Harskamp, the choice to go under the knife was an easy one, once she broke it down.

“I lose a kidney, she gets to live, I’d say pretty fair trade, right?” Harskamp told ABC News, while laughing.

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(Photo credit: Facebook)

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