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New York Captain Tammie Jo Shults, one of the first women fighter pilots in the US Navy, was hailed as an American hero Wednesday for calmly landing a stricken passenger jet after a midair engine explosion that killed a mother-of-two. Shults was identified as the pilot by passengers on Southwest Airlines Flight 1380, which was en route from New York to Dallas when its left engine suddenly blew apart, shrapnel shattering a window and partially sucking one woman out of the plane. An audio recording revealed a calm, unflappable Shults requesting medical assistance and telling air traffic control part of the aircraft was missing as she guided the jet and the 149 people on board into an emergency landing. (AFP)
