The veteran Southwest Airlines pilot hailed as a hero for safely landing her crippled 737 honed her “nerves of steel” as one of the first women to fly an F/A-18 Hornet for the US Navy — after she had been turned down by the Air Force.

Capt. Tammie Jo Shults, 56, kept her cool even as she told air-traffic controllers that passenger Jennifer Riordan had been partially sucked out of the depressurized cabin through a blown-out window, audio recordings reveal.

“[Passengers] said there’s a hole, and, uh, someone went out,” Shults can be heard calmly relaying to controllers at Philadelphia International Airport.

“She was nerves of steel,” said Alfred Tumlinson, one of the 144 passengers and five crew members aboard Flight 1380.

“That lady, I applaud her,” Tumlinson told The Associated Press. “I’m going to send her a Christmas card . . . with a gift certificate for getting me on the ground. She was awesome.”

Once the plane had safely touched down, Shults took the time to personally greet each of her passengers.

For Shults, that grace under fire had been a lifetime in the making.

“During my senior year of high school in 1979, I attended a vocational day where I heard a retired colonel give a lecture on aviation,” Shults told author Linda L. Maloney for the book “Military Fly Moms.” “He started the class by asking me, the only girl in attendance, if I was lost.”

“I mustered up the courage to assure him I was not, and that I was interested in flying,” Shults said. “He allowed me to stay, but assured me there were no professional women pilots.”

Out of college, Shults was rejected by the Air Force — who did offer her brother a chance to enlist. After more than a year of trying, Shults caught on with the Navy in 1983. Shults, of Texas, spent 10 years with the Navy, and was among the first women to fly an F/A-18 fighter jet when her squadron transitioned from the A-7.