7 ford, 30, is a Seahawk helicopter pilot and flight Whiting Field Naval Air Station in Milton, Fla, Sh (GREGG PACHKOWSKI/USA TODAY NETWORK uctor at ie earned her wings in 2012,FLYING HIGH Female aviators see progress, acceptance Melissa Nelson Gabriel Pensacola News Journal | USA TODAY NETWORK FLORIO With an engine out, passengers injured and a depressurized cabin, Southwest Airlines pilot Tammie Jo Shults spoke to air traffic control in Philadelphia. 8 “We have, uh, part of the aircraft missing, so we're gonna need to slow down a bit,” Shults told controllers April 17. 1 “Could you have the medical meet us there on the runway, as well? We've got, uh, injured passengers,” she later said, her voice never hinting at the chaos unfolding around her. Jennifer Riordan, the passenger closestto the blown engine, died when she was partially sucked out of the plane through a broken window. Other passengers were at risk with a limited oxygen supply at high altitude. Shults and her co-pilot made what experts have called a textbook emer- gency landing. As the 144 passengers onthe New York to San Francisco route credited her with saving their lives, much of the worldwide news audience ‘was surprised to learn the hero pilot was a 56-year-old wife and mother. ‘Women account for only about 5% Tammie Jo Shults meets President ‘See AVIATORS, Page 8A Trump. POOL PHOTO BY ANDREW HARRERgat TUE AY, MAY 15,2018 B USA TODAY Aviators Continued from Page 14 of all commercial pilots, said Connie Sheehan, a professor of sociology and women's studies at the University of Florida, who listened to a recording of Shults’ conversation with the Philadel- phia tower. “I think the fact that people were sur prised about how calm she was, that taps into the gender stereotypes that we have,” Sheehan said. "She ‘was so matter-of-fact, she didn't fit the stereotype at all.” Shuults eomes from an elite communi ty of female aviators who have been busting gender stereotypes for genera~ tions. She served in the U.S.Navy fom. 1983 to 1993 and was one of the first ‘womento fly the F/A18 Hornet fighter jet Jane O'Dea was among those cheer- ing Shults. “It didn't surprise me that she was a good pilot, because the Navy trains good aviators, I just thought it was kind of cool,” said O'Dea, who was part of a trailblazing group of women from 1974 who were the first to earn their coveted Navy flight wings. Even though women are still a small percentage of commercial and military aviators, they are more accepted now than ever before, said O'Dea, 68 “There axe still people out there who are not aware that womenare having vi- able careers in aviation. I think the fly- ing public, they are kind of oblivious to who is in the cockpit unless something goes wrong,” said O'Dea, who was among the first women to take off and land on an aircraft carrier — one of the ultimate challenges in all of aviation. ODea points to a 1975 Stars and Stripes newspaper article when de- scribing some of the challenges she faced trying to fit in to the almost exelu- sively male world of naval aviation, The article, which focused on her work as a pilot supplying the Navy's 6th Fleet from Rota, Spain, called her the “Go-Go Airline girl” The planes that supplied the 6th fleet were informally called the "Go-Go Airline” by sailors ‘The article described O'Dea, who was then known by her maiden’name of Skiles, as “young, 24, pretty and a girl you might try to impress if you saw her sitting in the officers’ club in any- thing but her decidedly unglamorous trousered Navy-blue uniform.”Lt. Ashley Hallford instructs Percentage of female commercial pilots plateaus o% SOURCE Institute for Women of Aviation Werldwide JIM SERGENT/USA TODAY “Before knew it, Ibecame the Go-Go Airline girl,” said O'Dea, who retired from the Navy as a captain in 1997. Inher time in the Navy, O'Dea said at- titudes about female pilots “went from ‘open hostility to grudging acceptance.” “It came down to the fact that either you could fly the airplane or you couldn't; they were not going to let you fly if you couldn't do it,” she said. Lt. Ashley Hallford, 30, a-flight in- structor at Whiting Field Naval Air Sta- tion in Milton, Fla., laughed as she read the 1975 article about O'Dea. Hallford, who earned her Navy flight wings in 2012, is a Seahawk helicopter pilot who trains flight students in the Navy’s T-6 B training aircraft. Hallford had a special interest in Shults, both as a fellow Navy aviator and because Hallford's father is a long- time Southwest Airlines pilot and for- mer Navy aviator. “From the beginning of fight school, youhave briefings about how to do that,” she said. ‘According to the Navy, 765 female pi- Jots make up slightly less than 7% of all Navy pilots today. “It is less about gender and more about the training that naval aviators receive,” said retired Navy captain Ster- ling Gilliam, director of the National Na- val Aviation Museum, who amassed more than 4,600 flight hours in 22 dif- ferent naval aircraft and completed ‘more than 1,300 carrier landings in his. 27-year career. “When I heard a former naval aviator dealt with an aircraft emergency with calmness and clinical precision, that didn’t surprise me.” Before the military allowed women to fly in combat, many female aviators left the military before reaching the highest ranks, said Hill Goodspeed, the mu- seum historian. The prohibition kept them from advancing, Goodspeed said. Inthe past two decades, a handful of women have become high-ranking offi- ight students in the Navy's T-6 B training aircraft. GREGs PACHKOWSKI/USA TODAY NETWORK cers. Rear Adm, Sarah Joyner, head of the Navy's Physiological Episode Action ‘Team, made history in 2013 as the first woman to command a carrier wing Sarah Myers, a professor at St. Fran- cis University in Loretto, Pa., is writinga book about women who flew during World War Il. Part of Myers’ book is about the crushing disappointment the women experienced when they were kicked out of the military in 1944. “The WASP (Women Air Force Ser- vice Pilots) program was shut down by Congress in a bill that labeled them as civilian and not military,” she said Although 1,074 flew military trans- port missions in the United States dur- ing the war and 38 died while serving their country, they were not considered military veterans until. ‘Congress changed their status in 1977. Shults wrote about herself in one chapter of the 2012 book Military Fly ‘Moms by Linda Maloney. After graduat- ing from high school in 1979, Shults said she wanted to learn to fly. The Air Force ‘tumed her down. “I did not understand how I could have such an interest in flying, not a passing infatuation but a real desire, and yet have no way of trying out my wings.” She later was accepted into the Navy and enrolled in flight school at Pensacola Naval Air Station in 1983, “Thoped God had given me an inter- est in flying for a reaso1