May 28, 2019 "Plane Crazy"

The Liberty Gazette

May 28, 2019

Ely Air Lines
By Mike Ely and Linda Street-Ely

Charles Lindbergh’s non-stop flight across the Atlantic inspired a great many people in a great many ways. The most obvious was within the aviation industry. Engineers went to work designing aircraft that could fly longer. Businessmen wrote new business plans for ways in which the airplane could contribute to efficiency and profits. Pilots got a shot of “we can do it!” and competed for more “firsts.”

But even outside the aviation industry, Lindbergh’s flight was a story of America’s spirit. That spirit reached every nook and cranny of American life.

Walt Disney was another influencer. Cartooning ballooned in popularity, especially as full-length feature films after the premier of Disney’s Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs. Animation caught the attention of children, which parents found useful, but also drew to it new artistic talent.

This was the “Roaring Twenties.” Much of the population was moving from farms to cities. People were defying Prohibition, indulging in new discoveries, such as hairstyles, make-up, dancing, and attire. It was a time of distinctive fashion trends and America became a society of mass consumption.

This was also the Golden Era of Flight. World War I had ended, and the airplane was a new item. Those with vision and imagination saw the potential the flying machines offered.

Ironically, Disney was born less than two months before Lindbergh. When the two were 26 and 25, respectively, Lindbergh dared a record flight across the Atlantic, and Disney debuted his first animation, “Plane Crazy,” a “sound cartoon” he created as tribute to Lindbergh and that historic flight.

And so it was that Mickey Mouse’s career started off in the building and flying of airplanes. This past May 16 was the 91st anniversary of that day when Disney introduced the world to his black mouse, who was plane crazy. And that crazy part was, well, accurate. The first rendition of the airplane didn’t fly, it crashed. As they say, never buy the Model A of anything. So, Mickey converted his car to an airplane. He even skimmed a book called, “How to Fly,” because who wouldn’t want to be a hero like Lindy? While it was rough going for a while to get it airborne, he finally made it, and took Minnie along for the ride.

Photo from
http://www.disneyfilmproject.com/2009/05/plane-crazy.html

Unfortunately, Mickey’s manners were abysmal, and his demand for a kiss at altitude caused Minnie to jump out. Fortunately for Minnie, her petticoat served her well as a parachute, possibly making her the first cartoon skydiver. There was a cow in the mix, too. After she was caught up by the plane before it took off, the “milk shower” was an obvious gag when Mickey tried to grab on to something. Now you’ll have to run over to YouTube and search for the film.

The six-minute animated short was silly, sure to get kids laughing, but its purpose was to celebrate Lucky Lindy, and his New York-to-Paris flight in the Spirit of St. Louis.

ElyAirLines.blogspot.com

May 21, 2019 Why Bulgaria

The Liberty Gazette

May 21, 2019

Ely Air Lines
By Mike Ely and Linda Street-Ely

“Why Bulgaria,” we were asked by several friends. “That’s why, exactly,” we answered. And we’d answer that way because what interested us was that we knew nothing about the country. In just a week and a half, through six cities and visits to over 20 different monuments of historical significance, we learned a lot.

Since we traveled on airliners, we don’t have much to tell about the flying, except to state our gratitude to Lufthansa for great vegan meals, including introducing us to vegan liverwurst. Truly, we were amazed. Other than that, the Airbus A-380 is quite comfortable in Premium Economy, although we felt the sway of the plane that far up front. The A-350-900 we rode on the return was the most impressive. No sway, not too big to fit at most gates (and therefore, no waiting as we did on the A-380). The cabin, designed by BMW, is wide and comfy, and the Rolls Royce engines are quiet and smooth. And, the A-350 seemed to take off in an impressively short distance, just 8,000 feet.

This trip was the first we have taken as part of a group, and the only reason we did was because of the touring company – Atlas Obscura. They are just what their name implies: traveling the globe for the more obscure treasures. The tour of Bulgaria was fascinating. Their 5,000-year history is complicated, and we think of the nation as having somewhat of an identity crisis. They only ended communism thirty years ago, and before that, they were ruled by others – the Ottomans (Turks), the Soviets, the Nazis, and the Soviets again.

There has been tremendous brutality. Killings, torture, and slavery. But one amazing fact for which Bulgarians should be highly revered is their refusal to turn over their resident 50,000 Jews when the Nazis insisted. Those lives were spared because people stood up and said no, such as the bishop of Plovdiv, Metropolitan Kirill, who lay down in front of a transport train filled with Jews, stopping one deportation.

But five hundred years of torture and massacre at the hands of the Ottomans created the most heartbreaking stories. After visiting many cities, we came upon Batak. On our itinerary was the small Orthodox church where many people fled for safety when their priest came out to plead for mercy from the Ottomans. Only about a thousand people survived the most horrific massacre of the April uprising in 1876.

As we are all about the healing story, how grateful we were to have arrived in Batak at the very hour of their annual remembrance that celebrates life in the public square next to that little church. We joined men, women, and children dressed in period clothes and danced to traditional music, with occasional canon firings and shotgun blasts emphasizing the speaker’s reflective narration. Here was the depth of immense pain presented at the same time as witnessing how people move forward from tragedy. So much more than an educational trip, it’s “Why Bulgaria.”

ElyAirLines.blogspot.com

May 14, 2019 Abindgon Mullin and her watches

The Liberty Gazette

May 14, 2019

Ely Air Lines
By Mike Ely and Linda Street-Ely

Abingdon Mullin is afraid of heights. She climbed Mount Kilimanjaro—its peak at 19,341’—because she is not afraid of a challenge.

In a conversation with other female pilots, the topic came around to wristwatches. Why were all the aviator watches made for men? Women would love to have technical watches, but they didn’t want to wear a man’s watch. Abingdon seized the moment. The Abingdon Co. makes watches for adventuresome women.

When I first met her about a decade ago, she had just launched Abingdon Watches with two models, the Jackie and the Amelia. But the market of female aviators is small. Researching how to make her product scalable before appearing on the TV show Shark Tank, Abingdon polled her customers to find out what else they liked to do. The most popular answer was scuba diving. This was an important discovery for her business. Millions of women scuba dive. In broadening her market, she now has watches for women scuba divers.

The company offers 60 different versions of Abingdon watches, and with all the choices of bands, there are about 230 different options. In October, the new watch inspired by NASCAR racer Julia Landauer will debut. You can shop at TheAbingdonCo.com.

Selling watches has become her primary job, but she still runs her ferry pilot business because flying is her passion, and she says she would be impossible to live with if she didn’t fly.

U.S. Air Force Col. Laurel Burkel bought her first Abingdon watch at a Women in Aviation International conference. Two years ago, she told Abingdon she would turn 50 in 2018 and would retire. Humbled by the invitation to her retirement party, Abingdon was ready to commit. “Just say when and where, and I’m there!”

The Colonel’s hand went up. “Hold on. It will be at the summit of Mount Kilimanjaro.” Abingdon had played soccer but had never climbed or hiked. She began training.

The Colonel’s retirement would also be a benefit to raise money for the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society. Only three of the thirteen guests were civilians. One was 70 years old and officiated the ceremony. They raised $60,000. For her part, Abingdon made a promise to those who donated through her link. She would shout out their names from the top of the mountain.

However, she was stricken with altitude sickness. She struggled to shout the names she had carried on her back all the way up. Despite fever, shakes, nausea, and dizziness, she kept her commitment, and every donor’s name soared from the top of Mount Kilimanjaro. Her next adventure on high terrain will be Machu Picchu, which is only 7,970’.

One of my favorite things about Abingdon is how she defines success. It comes, she says, when you’ve done everything within your power, put your heart and soul into it, even lost your breath striving for it. If you didn’t attain what you tried to do, you learned, and every lesson is a gift.

She’s not afraid of a challenge.

ElyAirLines.blogspot.com

May 7, 2019 Abingdon Mullin, the pilot

The Liberty Gazette

May 7, 2019

Ely Air Lines
By Mike Ely and Linda Street-Ely

When Abingdon Mullin was a sophomore in high school, she went to the Career Center the first Wednesday of every month for the free food offered during presentations. One day, two pilots from a flight school at nearby Burbank airport talked about careers in flying.

Abingdon learned two things. First, a military background wasn’t required. Second, airline flying wasn’t the only choice. They told her about corporate flying, banner towing, firefighting, missionary flights, morning traffic watch (off work by 10:00 am). The options surprised her.

She also liked the idea of being paid to travel. As an immigrant, born in England and raised by a Mexican mother, she traveled to see family and had her passport before age 1. Flying would be a perfect career.

After college, she spent every waking moment studying and flying and earned her private pilot certificate in 34 days. Upon obtaining her commercial certificate, she worked in sales as a demo pilot for Cirrus Aircraft, and later Lancair. Then she launched an aircraft ferrying business. As a result, she’s flown about 80 different types of aircraft in 20 countries. During that time, she studied more and became a flight instructor, then spent a year flying for Seaborne Airlines in Puerto Rico.

What she likes about ferrying is that she often flies an aircraft that is outside of its “comfort zone” (it’s condition possibly a concern). There isn’t a book written on how to do that. Sometimes, it’s outside the pilot’s comfort zone too, though not necessarily outside their skill set. She has turned down many flights because of the condition of the airplane.

 “Aviation is integral to all our lives whether we ever set foot on an airliner or not,” Abingdon affirms. “From what we order through Amazon to the groceries we buy—like avocados from Mexico.”

She says it has made the universe our neighborhood. “After Notre Dame Cathedral burned, many people shared photos of when they were there. Unless they hadn’t been there. They either said, ‘I wish I’d seen Notre Dame before it burned,’ or ‘I’m glad I saw it.’ But you can get on a plane and go! A couple of generations ago, you couldn’t. So even if you have no interest in aviation, you still benefit because of it. You can move for a job or college, visit distant grandkids, meet someone online and marry, because of aviation.”

Among the planes she’s flown so far, her favorite for long flights is the Lancair Evolution. It can carry a lot of weight, and you can fly it single pilot.

What has she not flown yet but is eager to? It’s a tie: Stearman, because it’s a classic, and the Boeing 737 because she holds a type rating for the Airbus A320 and is curious about the differences between the two.

Abingdon was the only girl in the Career Center that day, and there had never been a pilot in her family. Free food was a great start. Come back next week for more from this pilot-entrepreneur.

ElyAirLines.blogspot.com

April 30, 2019 Texas Biplane

The Liberty Gazette

April 30, 2019

Ely Air Lines
By Mike Ely and Linda Street-Ely

For a relaxing sit, choose among the twenty or so large, sturdy rockers lining windows outside the terminal building, facing the runway. Grab an ice-cold water from the cooler, and be a spectator of take-offs and landings, or if you’re flying in, come rest after a long flight while the lineman refuels your plane. The view at the West Houston Airport near Highway 6 and Barker Cypress welcomes everyone. There’s plenty of space for observation and lots of friendly folks.

There’s also an opportunity to take a flight in a 2006 Waco YMF-5. Painted blazing yellow with splashes of brilliant red, the open-cockpit biplane swoops low over treetops and high over the Houston skyline. Its throaty engine roars, as the pilot shows passengers what it was like to be a barnstormer.

At the controls is Lt Colonel Karl Koch, a 24-year veteran of the U.S. Air Force. While stationed in various places around the world, Karl served as an F-16 instructor pilot. He also flew combat missions over Iraq. These days, he’s an engineer for an oil company, but his weekends are his, free to take people up for a leisurely flight in his Waco.

When Karl was 12, his mother didn’t want him to fly. But in secret, his older brother bought him a “discovery flight” in a glider. When their mother saw young Karl in the glider, being towed by a tow-plane, she knew all she could do then was wave. Karl knew this was the one thing he wanted to do. He graduated from the Air Force Academy in 1995, and by his retirement, he had received numerous awards, including the Meritorious Service Medal with oak leaf clusters and the Bronze Star.

Working for an oil company has its benefits, but nothing compares to the freedom of flight. Or, as Karl says, “The biggest thrill in Texas, is flying over Texas!”

He takes time to listen to his passengers. Sometimes, there’s a young adult about to graduate from high school, interested in the military. Sometimes, there’s a person who at mid-life has finally reached a point where the kids are raised and there’s extra time and money to learn to fly. Sometimes, there’s a couple who just wants to enjoy a Texas sunset from a special vantage point. Whatever brings them to the West Houston Airport for a ride in an open-cockpit biplane, Karl commits to bringing them joy, answering questions, and sharing his passion for flight.

Woody Lesikar began making this West Houston Airport one of the most hospitable places in Texas back in 1962. This place, this activity, these people create the kind of atmosphere that makes you want to stay all day.

 If you’re looking for something to do on a lovely Saturday, make your way west. If you’re in time for breakfast, it’s on the house. You can book a ride in an elegant biplane at TexasBiplane.com. When you get there, you’ll see Karl, ready with a smile.

ElyAirLines.blogspot.com

April 23, 2019 Heroes

The Liberty Gazette

April 23, 2019

Ely Air Lines
By Mike Ely and Linda Street-Ely

What’s a hero? One we wrote about the last two weeks is Captain Curtis Laird of Dayton, who risked his life for others every day as a helicopter pilot in Vietnam. Another is a twenty-something young man from Germany whose anonymously donated bone marrow saved our grandson’s life.

And this discussion can’t go on without the mention of Captain Ken DeFoor of the Liberty County Sheriff’s Department, who will never retire from helping others. The man has a heart of gold.

There’s also Captain Tammy Jo Shults, the Southwest Airlines captain who safely landed a crippled and severely damaged airplane last year.

Three things Captain Shults emphasizes when she shares her story of flight 1380 are habits, hope, and heroes. First, if we practice good habits then in an emergency, those habits will be automatic at the time most needed. Second, hope doesn’t change our circumstances, but it does change us. Third, there’s no need for titles or props for one to be a hero.

She recounted opening the cockpit door after landing the plane, expecting to see frightened passengers and chaos in the cabin. To her surprise, everyone was calm, and people were helping each other. The flight attendants were heroes that day, helping and reassuring everyone, and creating a safe atmosphere so emergency responders could do their jobs. One passenger bent down to tie the shoes of another who was unable to do it themselves. We know about this because that person is one who Captain Shults calls a hero.

While the captain indeed saved many lives that day, she is quick to say that there were many heroes that day. Her definition of a hero is someone who takes time to be selfless and help others.

And that is exactly what we witnessed last week when Liberty Police Department Officer J. Rodriguez was driving through our neighborhood and stopped his car, got out, and walked up the driveway to help our neighbor who is mobility-challenged get into her vehicle.

Officer Rodriguez didn’t have to do that. This wasn’t a life-or-death situation. It was one most people would have ignored—and do every day. And it’s probably not in his job description. But people like him don’t live by job descriptions. They live by their convictions. They aren’t looking for recognition, and attention is not what motivates them. In fact, these are the kind of people who don’t even want the spotlight. They just want to do what’s right.

Although our column is mostly about aviation, this week’s piece for Ely Air Lines was prompted by the actions of Officer J. Rodriguez.

Heroes can be found in the sky, at sea, and on the ground. And there are opportunities to be a hero every day. So, let’s take our cue from their examples.

Here’s to the Curtis Lairds of the world, the Ken Defoors of every community, the Tammy Jo Shultses across the jet stream, and the J. Rodriguezes of every small town. We need more like you.

ElyAirLines.blogspot.com

April 16, 2019 Captain Laird, part II

The Liberty Gazette

April 16, 2019

Ely Air Lines
By Mike Ely and Linda Street-Ely

We’re back this week with Curtis Laird, who has stories about more than just bullets and hairy spiders from his time in Vietnam. Even cargo nets can cause problems.

Captain Laird had transitioned from flying CH-34’s to flying the Sky Crane, an amazing helicopter that looks like a giant wasp with its head down.

On November 15, 1968, a cargo net hanging from a Sky Crane he was flying broke. No one realized the material had rotted. Snapping in the air caused the hook, which was attached to the net from a cable off the Crane, to bounce up and hit a hydraulic line. Laird landed the Crane, and the crew carefully inspected the aircraft for damage. They thought it was okay, so he lifted off again.

Soon after, they heard an explosion in the cockpit. He remembers asking his co-pilot and flight engineer, “Are you guys okay?” He checked the gauges. Then he noticed it. Right by his co-pilot’s foot was a hole the size of a football in the floor of the chopper. His military facility directory, half an inch thick, also had a hole—pierced by shrapnel. The sniper must have been close. They were lucky they weren’t shot. Laird’s concern turned to the nose gear.

Military Facility Directory, complete with shrapnel

Still in the air, he radioed his unit maintenance announcing their impending return with mechanical problems and battle damage. He relayed that he was going to hover because he didn’t know whether they had a nosewheel. That’s an important thing to know when you want to land a Sky Crane. While they hovered, crews on the ground did walk-around inspections beneath the aircraft. Then the ground crew placed several mattresses below the nose gear in case there was hidden damage. Today, Captain Laird laughs that it was the softest landing ever. “We had lived to fight another day.”


Another time, he landed his Sky Crane at Plieku Air Base for the evening. He was hungry, but the air base mess hall was closed, and Camp Holloway was five kilometers away—a dangerous five kilometers. No one wanted to travel that road. But one fellow serviceman volunteered. He drove bravely in a Jeep—probably the fastest he ever drove that Jeep. When Laird arrived at the camp, he wolfed down a sandwich. Then he looked “over yonder” and saw Madison Powell from Dayton standing in the canteen. He was there to check some Air Force guys out in the C7A Caribous that were being transferred to the Air Force.

“Madison used to sing with the Three Lost Souls,” Curtis told us. “At one point, there were five of us from Dayton there in Vietnam around the same time. Ray Votaw, Charles Johnson, Sonny Simmons, Madison Powell and me.”

Captain Curtis Laird, of Dayton, Texas

Like others, Captain Laird was often shot at or shot up on missions in Vietnam. He was awarded the Air Medal with V device and 22 Oak Leaf clusters, the Bronze Star, and numerous other medals. He is one of Dayton’s heroes.

ElyAirLines.blogspot.com

April 9, 2019 Captain Laird, part I

The Liberty Gazette

April 9, 2019

Ely Air Lines
By Mike Ely and Linda Street-Ely

Mike: Dayton High School graduate Curtis Laird grew up in an oil field camp west of town. He’s a member of the Sons of American Revolution and Sons of Republic of Texas. For thirteen years, he was the American Legion Post Commander. He served on the appraisal district and was the chairman of Dayton city planning. He also did two tours in Vietnam.

When Laird joined the army in 1958, helicopter pilots were in demand. Fort Benning, Georgia would be his home during training in the 174th Aviation Company. After training, the 174th stepped into an old Lockheed Electra L-188 and were flown to the west coast where they boarded the military sea transport ship, the USNS Upshur.

Twenty-three days later, the ship dropped anchor in Qui Nhon Harbor on the central coast of Vietnam. They’d spend one more night on the Upshur, protected by grenades the MPs dropped in the water in a perimeter to discourage the enemy from sticking magnetic mines to the boat’s hull. The following morning, the soldiers climbed down rope ladders to a landing craft that took them ashore, where they boarded buses for the fourteen-kilometer trip to their new home, Lane Army Airfield.

A few days later, the company’s sixteen UH-1-D Hueys arrived on a carrier. The ship’s captain was understandably eager to return to deep water before dark, so he asked the pilots to get the choppers off his deck ASAP. These circumstances caused Laird’s first flight in Vietnam to culminate in landing in the profoundly somber darkness of night.

Notorious for moving people around, the Army soon transferred Laird to the 161st Aviation Company. One morning, while walking to their helicopters to fly an assault mission, Laird turned to fellow pilot Ray Ritzschke and said, “I’m yellow three, outside left.”

Ritzschke replied, “Well I’m flying left so I’ll give you good close support.”

During the flight, Laird heard tick-tick-tick. Thinking back on it, he laughs. “That was not good. But it wasn’t shrapnel, I know. That has its own distinct sound.”

When he discovered bullet holes on the left side of his Huey, he went straight to Ritzschke. “You shot up my aircraft!”

But Ritzschke just chuckled. “I told you I’d give you close support!”

Linda: But dodging bullets while flying resupply and assault missions wasn’t the only danger. The 161st also supported the heavy weapons unit, performing harassment and interdiction (H&I) missions using 155-mm Howitzers.

As they set up camp one night, Laird and the others inflated their air mattresses and lit one small candle in each of their open-floored tents. Thousands of white moths littered the air as they swarmed around the light, until a concussive blast from one of the nearby big guns blew out the flames. Upon relighting, the men were briefly happy to see those pesky moths lying on the ground. However, their relief was cut short when they discovered tarantulas crawling up from the earth to eat their “manna.”

Welcome to Vietnam, sleep well.

ElyAirLines.blogspot.com

April 2, 2019 Stripes

The Liberty Gazette

April 2, 2019

Ely Air Lines
By Mike Ely and Linda Street-Ely

Of the more than 314 million people in the United States, 49 per cent start their day with a bowl of cereal. This results in 2.7 billion boxes sold every year—enough to wrap around the earth thirteen times. But what would lure serial aviation columnists to this topic you ask? It all started with stripes.

When we learned there was turbulence over the meaning of stripes, we decided to save the world from such confusing flap. For background, you should know that Cap’n Crunch’s full name is Horatio Magellan Crunch and he was born on Crunch Island in the Sea of Milk.

The storm began brewing in 2013, when a food blogger noticed the Cap’n’s uniform only sported three stripes instead of four. This would make him a Navy Commander, a step down from a true Captain. When word got out, Cap’n Crunch tried to recover from this faux pas through Twitter. “Of course I’m a Cap’n! It’s the Crunch—not the clothes—that make a man.”

As we continued to dig deeper into the breakfast bowl, we discovered that the astronauts from Apollo 11 boosted their brain power while in space with a cereal breakfast. The cereal was mixed with fruit and pressed into cubes since the lack of gravity kept them from pouring it into a bowl with milk.

Further out to the edge cases, we learned that when Kix cereal issued its atomic energy-inspired Lone Ranger ring in 1947, the ring contained trace amounts of radioactive polonium, which glowed. Sadly, the material inside the rings had a short shelf life and none in existence work today, so we hear.

But back to the stripes. What you see in career pilot attire these days was introduced by PanAmerican Airways in the early 1930s. Before then, typical dress was World War I military style. That is, a comfortable shirt, khaki pants, black boots, silk scarves, and of course, the leather bomber jacket. When PanAm began flying South American routes in their Sikorsky S-38 and S-40 flying boats, management thought it would help passengers if their pilots looked more like sea skippers familiar with water vessels. That’s when pilot uniforms took the plunge to more closely resemble that of Naval officers, as they flew the American Clipper, Southern Clipper, and Caribbean Clipper.

PanAm’s great success caused others to follow suit, spoonful by spoonful. In today’s industry standard, we see officer-style caps with gold or silver insignia depicting the airline’s name or logo, black trousers, and black double-breasted blazers with braided loops on the lower sleeves denoting crew member rank. Four stripes on the shoulder epaulets and blazer arms are worn by the captain. Three stripes tells you that’s the first officer. On today’s passenger flights, two stripes typically means the person is a flight attendant.

While we know what to look for on each other, the dress code is often lost on the non-flying general public. But now Gazette readers are wiser than the average passenger bearing the weight of uniform ignorance.

ElyAirLines.blogspot.com

March 26, 2019 Women in Aviation

The Liberty Gazette

March 26, 2019

Ely Air Lines
By Mike Ely and Linda Street-Ely

Linda: Networking was in the conceptual spotlight at the annual Women in Aviation International conference in Long Beach, California this month. I was honored to be invited as a panelist on the Careers in Business Aviation panel, which I shared with five other female aviation professionals.

It really does boil down to who you know. However, success in that assumes one will work hard, be dependable, honest, and passionate.

That passion and dedication could be seen in the keynote speakers. One was Gwynne Shotwell, President and Chief Operating Officer at SpaceX. According to Forbes, she is one of the most powerful women in the world. Yes, she wants to go to Mars (and come back), but more important, she wants her vision and that of her boss Elon Musk to be fulfilled—to Mars and beyond.

The other keynote speaker was Captain Tammie Jo Schults, the pilot who landed her Southwest Airlines 737, flight 1380, safely in Philadelphia after violently losing an engine.

Captain Schults grew up on a ranch in New Mexico and dreamed of flying. Her family’s hay barn was a ground reference point for pilots from nearby Holloman Air Force base practicing aerial dogfights.

If you heard the tape of the radio transmission, you may recall how calm she was during the crisis. She had been a naval aviator, flying F-18s. She’d been under pressure at altitude before.

As she walked us through the tense moments that occurred April 17, 2018, the audience of 4,500 held its collective breath, even though we knew the outcome.

From 32,500 feet, they felt like they’d been hit by a truck. The airplane began skidding, rolling to the left, and pitching down. Their eyes couldn’t focus due to the severe shuddering of the airframe. Smoke came into the cockpit through the air conditioning system, making it hard to breathe or see. A window broke and this caused rapid decompression of air pressure which caused piercing pain in their ears. They began an emergency descent. The noise of wind while traveling 500 miles an hour was deafening.  Through it all, Captain Schults and First Officer Darren Ellisor flew the plane. The captain relayed to flight attendants that they were not going down, they were going to Philly.

Captain Schults, Southwest Airlines

Captain Schults is quick to state that aircraft are flown by crews, and crews have names. She named each one, as well as passengers who helped each other during the frightening time. But for the crew, the survival of most will never eclipse the loss of one.

Here were our take-aways: habits are formed from practice. When an emergency happens, our habits kick in. Hope does not change circumstances, but it does change us. And heroes. Every day, we have a chance to be a hero to someone.

When the crew later listened to the cockpit voice recorder, First Officer Ellisor’s ears perked up when they heard, “Heavenly Father.” He turned to his captain and said, “I knew you were praying!”

ElyAirLines.blogspot.com