By David Futrelle
A lot of people are pretty impressed with Tammie Jo Shults, the pilot who guided Southwest Airlines flight 1380 to a safe landing in Philadelphia on Tuesday after one of the plane’s engines exploded in mid-air, displaying a remarkable calm in the face of potential disaster in the audio recordings of her conversations with air traffic controllers that have gone viral on YouTube.
But not everyone is impressed. If you pick your way through the comments on the Daily Mail about the incident, you will find, alongside the hosannas, more than a few comments from disgruntled men angry that Shults has been declared a hero for “just doing her job.” Some Mail readers aren’t even sure she did that.
“A woman pilot?” one skeptic asked. “I don’t think so, bet she had a man in there helping, advising on procedure, doing the difficult bits.”
Another Mail reader insisted that Shultz simply couldn’t have been piloting the plane, because according to him it would have been against regulations. “I am a qualified commercial pilot and can advise you all that female pilots are prohibited from driving planes in emergency situations,” he declared. “The Global FAA does not allow it because women are prone to hysterics and cannot keep calm under pressure.”
Sure, buddy. And I’m a commercial pilot of the monkeys flying out of my ass.
Over on Gab, the Twitter alternative for Nazis and other unpleasant people, some greeted the news of Shults’ heroism with jokes and complaints.
But the most extraordinary response on Gab came from a woman who thought Shults was a hero — but remained convinced that she shouldn’t have been allowed to fly in the Navy in the first place.
Naturally, the fellow in the Men Going Their Own Way subreddit have their own opinions about Shults, very few of them positive. One commenter blamed her for the death of a passenger who had a heart attack after the explosion broke a window and depressurized the cabin.
![rocketman1899[S] 5 points 23 hours ago* I don't know, a dead passenger, makes her less of a hero to me. I mean for all we know she could have over spun that engine, causing it to fly apart. Either way she is not a "Hero", at best she did her job. Just like countless men before that never were given that title because they didn't have a vagina.](https://i0.wp.com/www.wehuntedthemammoth.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/04/cyfrvgtuibhnjok.png?resize=470%2C465&ssl=1)
Thanks for your insights on heroism and responsibility, dude sitting on his ass posting on Reddit.
Several commenters, unsurprisingly, used the news as an opportunity to talk shit about women in general.
In recent days, this last guy has spent many hours on Reddit complaining about “lazy and entitled” female dentists, warning his fellow MGTOWs of the perils of standing behind women in lines, and sniffing that an attractive women with a bit of a belly is “repulsive.” But apparently his life is so difficult and dangerous that an exploding jet engine doesn’t count as a “real emergency.”
What a man, what a man, what a man, what a really crap man.
Hello.
First, kudo to the pilot, it was an achievment not many persons can claim. Heroin, indeed, at least for the passengers.
Just because you make one post totalshitty doesn’t mean you are doing anything else totalshitty.
…
Oh, wait…
Well, at least, i am improving my english vocabulary. I have new synonym for “to deny”, now : to nazive and to redditick. Well, problem is that it is a bit like the Smurf, those verbs can be use in many situations…
Have a nice day.
😛 That wouldn’t have been the Waddington screw-up, by any chance? Well named place 😛
I’ve had a chopper throw a blade after trying to swallow a bit of shrapnel. Took out half the hydraulics on its way out, too – it bounced around inside the armour a bit. That were the day I learned you can keep flying if you swear hard enough. 😛
I deal with a lot of regulatory agencies in the line of my work.
And the FAA will be all over the inspection schedules and logs with a fine toothed comb.
My guess is that management wanted to minimize inspection time and pushed for longer and longer inspection intervals.
It could be that there was an error during inspections and someone forget to mount a part or left a tool somewhere.
But my money is on management skimping on maintenance.
As for the fuckwit talking about overspinning the turbine…
Asshole, please. The pilot can’t even push the engine to 100%. And the safety margins in engineering mean that that is quite far away from any danger zone.
Of course, sweetie. In a real emergency, she’d panic. Not like you, who handle real emergencies (not some silly plane crash) every day with a cool head.
@ shadowplay
I’m saying nowt. 🙂
Ah, helicopters. What’s that saying “Never get into an aircraft where the wings are moving faster than the fuselage”. I sometimes go down to RNAS Culdrose. There’s a cafe where you can watch the learner chopper pilots being introduced to the big beasts. That’s fun; especially when they start drifting over in your direction and back again “Argh….phew”.
Speaking of helicopters, one of my fave bits of nerdy trivia is the word derives from ‘Helico’ meaning spiral, and ‘pter’ meaning wing, as in pterodactyl.
I wonder whether any MGTOWs have ever met a nurse. You know, the people who deal with messy, dirty, life-and-death situations every working day — 91 percent of whom, at least in the USA, are women.
https://www.census.gov/newsroom/press-releases/2013/cb13-32.html
@Alan
Probably wise. No limitations for blanking an inquiry. 😛
I love choppers – we just get along. Actually wrote a short story about flying them – it’s a love story. 🙂
@Jojo mojo
You know, they just might. Consider that armored, secured cockpit doors have been a factor in at least one major incident and will likely be replaced by something a little less secure in future, and it could happen :-/
As luck would have it, we can do a scientific study comparing female vs male emergency landing skills.
This was my local airfield yesterday. Well, near my local airfield, which is kind of the point. Engine cut out, so he had to come down wherever. I’m no aviation expert, but I’m sure they’re meant to be the other way up.
(He just got a few cuts and bruises, so it’s ok to take the piss a bit, and in fairness any landing you can walk away from is a good one.)
I think this:
makes me most angry. how someone can type that firstly – when it is bullshit, and second people will believe him too! I am not a pilot but my job is very dangerous and also very lonely, when we are deep sea we must be fire department, hospital, flood control – every emergency service because no one will come and save us for some time. and in my company there are female captains, Cheif mates, second engineers – all these ranks, captain most, must take control under emergency situation. they must be all emergency services, make plans to fight emergency situation and care for all their crew. captain is second only to god – that is what some sailors say. so I know women are capably and will not have hysterics – I know and I trust, because I have to, they are captain, and there is a good reason why they are captain. secondly, they all have psychological tests so be sure that they can deal with emergency scenarios.
what I mean is- fuck this guy. he is not a pilot. I doubt very much he even works in dangerous job – because if it is so, he would not even think to say such things. if he worked in a dangerous job he would know.
Well said.
I’m avoiding the OP for a little while longer cos I just got up, but I feel it’s a good time to share something.
http://www.atomic-robo.com/comics/1430572959-ARV702_int_print-0.jpg
So there’s this webcomic I like, specifically a story arc called The Flying She-Devils of the Pacific and its prequel arc Raid on Marauder Island. It’s got robots, sky pirates, a rogue Japanese force from WW2, doomsday devices, and awesome badass pilot ladies (with jetpacks !) who apparently missed one hell of an opportunity to recruit Shults.
For context, Atomic Robo is a fun webcomic that follows the adventures of its namesake character, a robot designed and built by Nikola Tesla. RSA is a sister webcomic that focuses on all the characters not called Robo and weaves their stories a bit further.
Should be noted that the two stories are extremely different from one another, and that one has all the science-fiction and the other none of it. So if the part with the robot with a nuclear reactor for a heart and the Japanese doomsday bombs ain’t your thing, chances are you’ll still love Raid on Marauder Island. At any rate, I highly recommend both.
Another tipoff that he’s not a commercial pilot: he talks about “driving planes”.
Or maybe he is a commercial pilot, but he’s not allowed to take off.
@ buttercup
Well now we know Neil did get his dream job.
I’m pretty sure that the dude saying ‘Women go hysterical in REAL emergencies!’ has never been in an emergency himself.
When I was 17 my mum nearly choked to death. I kept her calm, called emergency services, went to the neighbour to get them to flag down the ambulance.
Ambulance came and took her to hospital. I called my dad to tell him what happened and told him where they had taken my mum.
During all that I was cool as a cucumber. But as soon as I hung up I lost it. Spent the next hour on the couch sobbing and hugging the cat.
Many people of any gender are like this.
I listen to the VASAviation channel on YouTube; hours and hours of air traffic conversations.
Most commercial pilots and controllers sound *completely bored* when there’s an emergency.
One recording that struck me, the air traffic controller was pretty quick and snappy. Then a plane declares an emergency, and his speech slooooows way down, and suddenly it sounds like he’s just lounging on an easy chair on the porch, sipping a beer, cool as a cucumber as Knitting put it.
There’s no difference between men and women in the recordings I’ve heard. But invariably in the YouTube comments there’s an asshole railing at whatever woman you heard in the recording.
I wish one of them would make this point to all those men who think they’re experts in everything because they’ve studied/work in a single STEM field.
You all know the type because the manosphere is full of them and they come here to troll quite often. Those guys who think they’re experts in psych, sociology and evolution because they know how to write code.
Those “I’ve learned a STEM subject, therefore I am inherently rational, therefore I’m right about everything” guys.
The hypocrisy it takes for anyone in the manosphere to write that sentence is just outstanding.
Knitting Cat Lady:
Yep. You know what needs to be done, so you JFDI, and save the optional falling apart until it’s safe to do so. You often don’t know you’re capable of this until it happens!
WWTH:
What makes this extra annoying is that these types often aren’t even good coders!
@kat
I work at an emergency ward. Most of the nurses are women, and so are about half of the doctors staffed there. This is due to a political decision made by our gynocentric PC Feminazi biology-denying government. They want to get votes from women by having them believe stupid things, like that women actually… can do stuff. The result is predictable. Sometimes seriously ill or injured patients arrive at the emergency ward. When this happens, all the female personnel simultaneously start to faint, menstruate and wail for big, brave, strong men to come save the day. Men who don’t consider little incidents, like an engine exploding mid-air, an emergency.
…
OK seriously now, this amazingly skilled and courageous pilot and her team saved the lives of 148 people, and these guys… are intimidated and insulted by that! Wow…
Yeah, Marion Orr tells you to eat shit, chucklenuts.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BaE9UepP__8
I hate to be that guy, but I’m really not comfortable with all the back-patting regarding her military service. Perhaps if she was with another country’s military, I’d feel differently, but the cult of the soldier is bad enough in the United States (and is rapidly infecting Canada based on the hockey games I’ve attended). Not to mince words, but the fact that she was an F/A-18 Hornet pilot means that she can bomb civilians in Kosovo as well as men could. Yay, progress.
It is rather pathetic that she doesn’t even get the typical cult of the soldier adulation purely due to her gender. Seriously, she saved some lives. Credit where credit is due.
Yeah, I see what you did there, David.
Hearty round of applause for Valentin, too. These guys wouldn’t know a dangerous job if it bit them in the arse.
@Gijoel:
“Mall ninja” is the handiest, dandiest term I’ve seen yet for these Monday-morning quarterback types. I must use that more often!
And speaking of mall ninjas, this one’s a real wiener:
Commercial airlines don’t hire pilots who just “do one thing competently”, skippy. Neither does the US Navy, which she was in for several years before going commercial. And neither one would still keep them flying after as many years as this lady has logged if just one thing was all they could do competently. Face it: She’s damn good at her job — ALL of it — and it’s one job you can’t and won’t ever do because, as a posturing machista, you’d probably hit the fan like a wet fart at the first sign of anything even slightly wrong.
Also, this WAS a real emergency. An engine blew up and died, sending fragments of metal flying. At least one of them smashed a window, killing a passenger and sucking her partway out. The cabin depressurized, and the oxygen masks dropped. She had to request immediate assistance and bring the plane down on just one engine, at an airport hundreds of miles from the flight’s final destination. That kind of shit doesn’t happen during a FAKE emergency, asshole.
honestly even if you don’t like military this woman is a hero!
@Bina
If this is your first time hearing of mall ninjas, tghen I assume you’ve never seen this.
Edit: @Moggie
FTFY 😉