NOTE: This is a “shaping story” that I will probably update a few times as new flight details come to light.

It was going to be a typical day for two exceptional women.

One, that morning, was completing a short business trip in New York, and was happy to be heading home to Albuquerque to rejoin her husband and her two children, her son and her daughter. She was a busy woman, but full of compassion and initiative, and friendliness and efficiency and kindness, eager to help make lives around her better.

The other, known for her calmness, care, and confidence, was beginning her work day that morning, which involved flying a Southwest 737 airliner through several legs of the aircraft’s scheduled route: departing that morning from LaGuardia to go to Dallas, and then on to New Orleans, to make stops after in Oakland, Reno, Vegas, and San Francisco. It was a route she knew well.

The plane was fueled. The crew boarded. Luggage was loaded into the craft’s undercarriage. The 140-or-so passengers were queued and let onto the plane.

In the middle of them was the one going home.

She ended up sitting in a window seat mid-plane, adjacent to the left wing and engine.

In the cockpit, the pilot and her co-pilot went through their pre-flight checklists, communicated with their crew, talked to the airport flight controllers, and finalized their pre-flight considerations. She thought briefly of her husband, also a pilot, as she ran through run-up for the morning’s first flight. In the passenger cabin, the flight attendants completed their pre-flight routines, walking the plane’s aisle, securing luggage compartments and instructing passengers as the plane’s engines stirred to life.

At 10:27 AM EST, both women were belted into their seats as Southwest Flight 1380 pushed back from its gate, 3 minutes ahead of schedule.

For another 16 minutes, 1380 made its way to its runway, where it finally lifted off at 10:43 AM, 13 minutes behind schedule.

The flight to Dallas was going to take 3 hours and 10 minutes.

By 10:45, the plane was at 5,000 feet.

At 10:47, the plane was at 10,000 feet.

At 10:50, the plane cleared 15,000 feet.

At 10:54, the plane was at 25,000 feet.

At 11:01, the plane was at 30,000 feet.

At 11:03, 20 minutes into the flight, the plane had reached 32,000 feet, and was cruising WSW at 520 miles per hour.

Some passengers sat trying to sleep. Some talked with one another. Some read. Some were antsy to work on business spreadsheets and documents. The flight crew, sitting in a cluster, was still awaiting the familiar chime that meant cabin movement was acceptable, and they softly chatted.

One woman sat mid-plane, a wife, a bank vice-president, and a mother of two.

One woman sat in the pilot’s seat, a wife, and captain of a commercial airliner.

At 11:04 AM, an explosion on the front of the engine on the left wing jettisoned the engine cowling and peppered the fuselage with shrapnel. Something poked a hole in the aircraft wall by the passenger woman’s seat, which due to the cabin’s pressurization, exasperated the frame and resulted in ripping her window from the aircraft.

The plane jolted, the cabin went silent and then flooded with confusion and panic. Oxygen masks popped out from the ceiling in the passenger cabin.

And within the cabin, anything loose rushed for the open mid-craft window- where the mother had sat, and where she herself had been, without warning, partially pulled through the serrated slot out of the plane.

The passengers sitting around her held her, gashed and bleeding, in the plane, fighting against the fury that wanted to suck the row outside, trying to help her, secure her, save her. Some tried to move close and block the gap, to no avail.

And then she blacked out.

Within a minute the aircraft had lost 3,600 feet of altitude.

Some on board yelled in panic. Some held hands with row mates and prayed. One filmed the activity in the chaotic cabin. Some tried to text loved ones to tell them goodbye and that they loved them.

However, the plane did not pitch or roll, despite the engine loss.

In the cockpit, the captain- a veteran Navy flier and pilot trainer, and the first woman to fly an F/A-18 Hornet- recognized the size of their massive problem, and her calm, cautious, and clear instincts, forged by thousands of hours flying in the military, kicked in.

In her seat, she had only one option on her mind: to land the aircraft and to deliver the passengers to safety.

She quickly identified Philadelphia as the closest airport at which to set the plane down. An emergency landing at Philadelphia International Airport was negotiated and initiated.

The captain wheeled the plane south, then southeast, and then due east.

At 11:06, the plane was cruising 506 mph at 25,000 feet.

At 11:08, the engine had throttled down, 333 mph at 17,000 feet.

Philly was a third of the distance they had flown to their east.

In the cabin, the heart of the middle row mother, who had been bloodied and broken by the blast and the sky’s effort to wrench her out the window, gave out. With cabin pressure stabilizing from the drop in altitude, two medics on the plane reached her and tried to figure out how to save her.

The plane continued to fly and fall until it leveled at about 11,000 feet at 11:11, heading due east at 400 mph.

Passengers, bound to the ailing airliner by the web of oxygen masks, sat wide-eyed and helpless, quiet in a tide of terror, waiting and watching as the plane flew on, level.

11:12: 380 mph at 9,200 feet.

The pilots ran through system checks, evaluating potential peripheral damage to the aircraft that might impact its ability to land.

11:14: 307 mph at 7,000 feet.

11:16: 290 mph at 5,000 feet.

The pilot, aware of the critical injury in the cabin, had requested emergency medical vehicles on the tarmac. The runway was identified and cleared. The 737 would need to hook around the airport and approach its landing from the northwest- could the aircraft do that? Yes- we have good control of the aircraft.

The runways at KPHL were cleared for the wounded plane. Emergency vehicles moved onto a tarmac, on standby for calamity and aid.

In the passenger cabin, relief, fear and sorrow welled.

At 11:18, Flight 1380 from LaGuardia skirted east past the Philadelphia airport at 250 mph and 1,700 feet, and beginning a short shallow turn which lined the aircraft up with the runway.

At 11:19, Flight 1380 descended toward the runway, 194 mph at 700 feet.

At 11:20, Flight 1380 touched down at Philadelphia International Airport, to the immense emotional release of its passengers.

At 11:23, the aircraft rolled to a stop.

The 56 minute flight was officially over.

Shock, disbelief, anguish, and gushing gratitude filled the cabin.

Emergency vehicles swarmed the plane, soaking the left stub of an engine with fire retardant. The flight attendants identified the wounded on the plane. The pilots quickly talked through with airport officials emergency procedures.

One woman, beneficent and beloved, was lifted from her bloodied seat and shuttled off the plane, at the end of her life.

One woman, calm, controlled, and clear-minded, slid out of her pilot’s perch and hurried back into the aircraft cabin to ask about the lives of her passengers.

It was not a typical day for two exceptional women.

—

I was deeply moved by accounts of today’s heartbreaking events on Southwest Flight 1380.
I was moved to learn that both women were New Mexican in ties,
and that both were women held in deep respect.

I am amazed and overjoyed at Tammie Jo’s poise and presence of mind.
I am saddened by Jennifer’s lost light.