Happy Thoughts

[The_Polymath]

The kindness of strangers: a man I’d just met helped me land the job that...

[SteveWhite]

The engine detonated at 32,000 feet. A passenger lost their life. The aircraft was breaking apart. She brought it down safely on one engine and spoke to air traffic control as if she were ordering a drink.

April 17, 2018. Southwest Airlines Flight 1380.

Captain Tammie Jo Shults was at the controls when the left engine of her Boeing 737 burst without warning.

Metal fragments ripped through the fuselage. A window blew outward, partially pulling a passenger through the opening. The cabin depressurized instantly. Oxygen masks fell. The aircraft shook so violently that passengers were certain they were about to die.

People sent final messages to their families. Strangers squeezed hands. Parents held their children and whispered that everything would be okay, even though they didn’t believe it.

In the cockpit, alarms howled. The plane was rolling. Systems were failing. One engine was gone. Part of the fuselage was missing.

And Captain Tammie Jo Shults’s voice came through the radio, steady as rock.

“We have a section of the aircraft missing, so we’re going to need to slow down a bit… Could you have medical meet us there on the runway as well? We’ve got injured passengers.”

No panic. No screaming. No fear in her voice at all.

Air traffic controllers later said they couldn’t believe how calm she sounded. It was as if she was reporting a small inconvenience, not fighting to keep 149 people alive.

But that calm didn’t come from nowhere.

It came from a lifetime of being told she didn’t belong—and proving everyone wrong.

Tammie Jo grew up in New Mexico, a girl who looked up at the sky and wanted to fly.

She dreamed of becoming a fighter pilot. She wanted to serve her country. She wanted to push machines to their limits and conquer the impossible.

The world told her: Girls can’t be fighter pilots.

The U.S. Navy had a policy: women were barred from combat roles. No matter how skilled, how dedicated, how qualified—if you were female, you couldn’t fly fighter jets.

Tammie Jo applied to the Navy anyway.

They turned her down.

She applied again.

Rejected.

She kept applying. Again and again and again.

Finally, in 1985, they accepted her—but not as a pilot. As an aggressor pilot instructor. She could teach male pilots how to fly. She could train the elite. But she couldn’t fly combat missions herself.

It was the highest position the Navy would allow a woman.

Tammie Jo took it. Because being close to the cockpit was better than being nowhere near it.

She became one of the best. She flew A-7 Corsairs. She taught pilots how to survive when everything went wrong—when engines failed, when systems quit, when aircraft spun out of control.

She mastered emergency flight so thoroughly that the Navy put her in charge of training the students everyone else called elite.

Then, in 1993, the combat exclusion policy fell. Women could finally fly fighter jets.

Tammie Jo had been waiting for that moment her entire career.

She trained harder than pilots who had started a decade earlier. She became one of the first women to fly the F/A-18 Hornet in the U.S. Navy.

She flew combat missions. She proved she belonged in every cockpit she entered.

And then, after years of military service, she transitioned to commercial aviation. She became a pilot for Southwest Airlines.

Some people thought it was a step down—from fighter jets to passenger planes.

Tammie Jo didn’t see it that way. She saw it as a new mission: getting people home safely.

And on April 17, 2018, that mission was tested like never before.

When the engine exploded, the Boeing 737 started rolling. The aircraft was trying to flip. With one engine gone and the fuselage damaged, the plane was nearly uncontrollable.

Tammie Jo fought it by feel. She used everything she’d learned in decades of flying—every emergency drill, every simulation, every moment of training when things went catastrophically wrong.

Her first officer, Darren Ellisor, worked beside her, handling communications and supporting her decisions. Together, they brought the plane under control.

Twenty minutes after the explosion, Tammie Jo landed Flight 1380 safely in Philadelphia.

One passenger, Jennifer Riordan, had been pulled partially through the broken window and died from her injuries despite heroic efforts by other passengers to pull her back inside.

But 148 people survived.

Because Tammie Jo Shults refused to let the plane go down.

After the landing, she didn’t give interviews. She didn’t seek the spotlight. She walked through the cabin, checking on every single passenger, comforting them, making sure they were okay.

Passengers later described her as calm, compassionate, almost serene—even though she had just fought to save their lives.

One passenger said, “She has nerves of steel. That lady, I owe her my life.”

The audio recording of her communication with air traffic control went viral. People couldn’t believe how steady her voice was. How controlled. How professional.

But Tammie Jo had been preparing for that moment her entire life.

Every time the Navy rejected her application and she applied again.

Every time she was told women couldn’t handle combat and she trained harder.

Every time she taught elite pilots how to survive emergencies.

All of it was preparation for the twenty minutes when 148 lives depended on her not panicking.

Tammie Jo Shults retired from Southwest Airlines in 2020 after decades of flying.

She never sought fame. She wrote a book, Nerves of Steel, not to celebrate herself but to honor the crew and passengers who survived that day—and to remember Jennifer Riordan, who didn’t.

Her story isn’t just about one emergency landing.

It’s about what happens when you refuse to accept the limits others place on you.

When you keep applying even after the tenth rejection.

When you train harder than anyone else because you know you’ll be judged more harshly.

When you master your craft so completely that when the worst happens, your hands know what to do before your mind even processes the fear.

The world once told Tammie Jo Shults she didn’t belong in a cockpit.

The sky answered differently.

Captain Tammie Jo Shults: Born 1961. One of the first female U.S. Navy fighter pilots. Saved 148 lives. Retired with grace.

The girl told she couldn’t fly. The woman who became one of the best pilots in the world. The captain whose voice never wavered—even when the plane was falling apart.

Wikipedia confirms (with far less details) and adds

Shults later revealed that she had not originally been scheduled to pilot the flight, but had swapped the shift with her husband.

U.S. Representative and former US Air Force colonel and pilot Martha McSally introduced a resolution in Congress to honor Shults for her life-saving heroism and skill in landing her badly disabled aircraft.

On December 10, 2020, Shults was inducted into the International Air & Space Hall of Fame

[quoll]

I needed an estimated scrolling time for that one.

[Cooke]

Just watched an interview on CBC with Robert Munsch. Don’t know how well known he is in the US but we read a gazillion of his books to our kids.

Munsch is in the early stages of dementia but content in the knowledge that he brought joy to so many kids. He has signed up for assisted death. Made me happy to listen to him as he is at peace with the world.

[tommie.frazier]

Love You Forever is one I suspect anyone with kids read to them a lot?

my goodness, i did not know the backstory on it (but acknowledge the singing refrain from the book).

the book was written after Munsch and his wife had two stillborn babies.[2] It began as a song that Munsch would sing in his head for his two babies as singing it out loud was too emotional.

[Cooke]

Love You Forever is probably his best known: it resonates more with parents than kids. Our kids liked the more boisterous books better.

[The_Polymath]

The Bulgarian population forced the pro-Putin Govt to resign

The young got tired of the corruption.

Hopefully Orban is next (Hungary) as he is trailing electorally.

'The government resigns': Bulgaria’s PM steps down after anti-graft protests

[SpaceLobster]

Had an lol. My spouse occassionally chooses to shovel the driveway. Doesn’t like the shovel we have. So I went to the hardware store. Buddy asks me if he can help. I declared loudly "I’m looking for a christmas gift for my wife. Where do you keep your snowshovels?'. lol.
One of the other patrons suggested I should pick up a hockey helmet.

[SpaceLobster]

And I couldn’t decide between two shovels - one I preferred but another I think they would prefer. So I told her to go to the hardware store and tell them she was there to pick up her christmas present.
It’s a small town, so they’ll remember our conversation lol.

[vjvj]

What are these anti-graft protests they speak of? How can we get some?

Signed,
The United States of America

[tommie.frazier]

smiling as I watch my dog trot through the 400 linear feet of path I shovel in the back yard for her to do her business and exercise. could do without the 1130pm barking the whole time, but…smiling at the trail usage!

[Bro]

you sound like good people.

[SpaceLobster]

The internet is a glorious thing. Just saved me hundreds.

I’ve got an office chair that I’ve had for I have no idea how long. I don’t remember buying it. Maybe 20 years? It started banging when I moved. Loud enough that my spouse upstairs mentioned it.

30 years ago I’d have had to buy a new chair for hundreds. Today, I spent 5 minutes on youtube, and it’s fixed. Total cost $0. THough I did spend $30 buying a replacement part for next time it does it.
Crazy to think about the before times when we simply didn’t have access to information on absolutely everything.

[Breadmaker]

My neighbour officially retired today. He’s 71 and still fairly spry!!

[SteveWhite]

Balto was a hero, but not the biggest hero. tl/dr; (Another lead dog covered almost 5 times as great a distance, under greater danger.)

[details=spoiler text]

[/details]

Wikipedia confirms

[Hip_tiger]

There’s a statue honoring Balto which we saw in New York’s Central Park.

Balto

[Breadmaker]

Got some new recycling bins from the city!! Brand spankin’ new for paper/glass&metal/organics with a roll of kitchen bags and a guide!!

[SpaceLobster]

We got new garbage and recycling bins because in the spring they’re moving to those trucks with the mechanical arms.

[tommie.frazier]

those things are amazing. i worked on a truck two summers, my job title was “shaker” bc I shook the barrels out into the back of the truck. those arms can lift it all and fast with a driver only. amazing and safer (assuming no low hanging wires!)

[Breadmaker]

Just completed the last bit of structured CPD I needed to file for 2024-2025 as a good, little actuarian!!!