April 10, 2019
Media Advisory – Pioneering female aviator returns this weekend to be honored at banquet
Nearly 42 years after marking a historic first in aviation history, a pioneer woman aviator will return to Southern Illinois.
Lynn Rippelmeyer, who with Emilie Jones was part of the first all-female crew to pilot a scheduled U.S. airline, will be honored during the spring 2019 aviation banquet on Saturday, hosted by Southern Illinois University Carbondale’s Alpha Eta Rho, a registered student organization within the school’s aviation program.
The banquet is at 6 p.m. at Keller’s Crossing at Stone Creek, 503 Stone Creek, Makanda. Jay Osberg, a FedEx flight officer and 2003 SIU Carbondale aviation management alumnus, is the keynote speaker, and he will discuss building a career and reputation in the aviation industry.
The 2019 SIU Aviation Career Fair on Friday is one day before the banquet. The career fair is from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. in the Transportation Education Center’s multipurpose room.
Reporters, photographers and news crews are welcome to cover both the career fair on Friday and banquet on Saturday. A media availability with Rippelmeyer is set for 4 p.m., Saturday in the airport office, 556 N. Airport Road. To arrange for interviews, contact Gary Shafer, Southern Illinois Airport manager and senior lecturer in the Department of Aviation Management and Flight, at 618/529-1721.
To arrange to interview Osberg, contact Olivia Vincent, the Alpha Eta Rho Sigma chapter president, at olivia.vincent@siu.edu.
Jones is unable to attend the banquet due to health.
Details on the historic flight
Jones and Rippelmeyer were captain and first officer, respectively, when on Dec. 30, 1977, they piloted the turboprop Air Illinois flight 214 from its hub at Southern Illinois Airport and made two round trips that day to Quincy with stops to St. Louis in between. They logged 5.5 hours of flight time. Jones and Rippelmeyer were not scheduled to fly together that day, but were the only pilots able to get to the airport due to bad weather.
Until Air Illinois hired Jones and Rippelmeyer, there was no airline with two female pilots who were qualified to fly together. Rippelmeyer said to her knowledge, Jones was the second to fly as a captain and Air Illinois was the first to hire a female captain and first officer together. With the seniority system the way it was at most airlines at that time, the possibility of two women flying together would not happen for years, Rippelmeyer said.
Rippelmeyer and Jones flew together about twice a month, or about a dozen times, before Rippelmeyer left for TWA in June 1978. A one-time flight attendant for TWA years earlier, Rippelmeyer became a Boeing 727 flight engineer.
After a furlough, Rippelmeyer went to Seaboard World Airlines, where she became the first woman to fly the B-747 as a first officer. Later, in 1984, at People Express, she was the first woman to captain the B-747 transatlantic.
The two women were featured earlier this year in a PBS documentary “We’ll Meet Again” with Ann Curry. There is also a blog detailing Rippelmeyer’s aviation achievements and the credit she gives Jones for her career.
Speaker will discuss career, aviation industry
Osberg is one of the youngest captains at FedEx Express and is flying the B-757. He has been with the airline since 2016 where he started flying the B-767.
After graduating from SIU Carbondale in 2003, Osberg worked as a flight instructor at Southern Illinois Airport before being hired in 2005 by Colgan Air, a regional subsidiary of Pinnacle Airlines Corp. Osberg upgraded to captain in 18 months and later became a check airman, fleet manager and duty officer.
After the merger of Colgan, Pinnacle and Mesaba Airlines in 2012, Osberg transitioned to the CRJ and was manager of flight standards during the merger and Delta Airlines acquisition. Osberg was hired at JetBlue Airways in 2013 and flew the Airbus for three years before being hired at FedEx Express.