How a Fighter Pilot Stayed Calm Amid Life-Threatening Chaos

The missile rocked her aircraft, tearing apart the rear stabilizer.

Now, Air Force Col. Kim Campbell was 7,000 feet over Baghdad, lights flashing in the cockpit, fire beginning to emanate from her A-10 Thunderbolt II.

“I knew I had been hit, no doubt in my mind,” Campbell said. “I pulled back on the control stick. Nothing happened. The jet was not flying.”

What ensued, however, wasn’t panic or hysteria.

Instead, Campbell drew on a three-word mantra that had been ingrained in her mind for years from Air Force contingency training.

“Aviate, navigate, communicate,” she said. “So much of my training helped me prioritize under pressure and be calm in the chaos.”

Campbell ultimately returned her severely-damaged fighter jet to base, surviving a harrowing hour-long flight over Iraq, the possibility of having to eject never entirely ruled out.

Campbell still routinely reflects on that spring day in 2003 as a keynote speaker and consultant. Two years ago, she penned her first book, "Flying in the Face of Fear," with critical lessons from her 24 years in the military.

Best of 7 spoke to her about how she overcame an initial rejection from the Air Force, the importance of contingency planning for leaders, and why mantras and catchphrases matter when crisis hits.

This interview has been edited and condensed for clarity.

Best of 7: Col. Campbell, I know you were initially rejected from the Air Force Academy. How did you overcome what must’ve been a big disappointment?

Rejection is hard, especially when it’s something you’ve worked hard for. You know you’ve put in the effort, and to hear the word “No” is overwhelming. I was definitely disappointed, closer to devastated.

Thankfully, I had a huge support system. My parents, my family, my friends, everybody was super supportive, but it was more than just, “We’re here for you." It was, "Don’t quit on this. If this is what you want, if this is what you’re willing to put in more work for, stay with it.”

The best piece of advice was from my liaison officer. He just said, "Look, write them a letter and tell them how interested you are." I took his advice and ran with it — maybe a little too far. I wrote them a letter every week. I would let them know I was still interested and if there was something I’d improved on, whether it was more push-ups, pull-ups, sit-ups or an A on a test. That’s really what paid off, not quitting when times got tough and having people there to support and say, “You can still do this.”

The Air Force was pretty male-dominated at that point. How did you prevent any skepticism you might've faced from holding you back?

In the Air Force Academy, women were about 12 percent then. I didn’t really think it was a big deal. Then, I went to a fighter squadron and women were about 1 percent. It was a significant change and pretty obvious.

I put a lot of pressure on myself. I was really worried if I made a mistake or if I failed in any way, I would ruin it for all of these women who could potentially follow in my footsteps. But I suppose the good side of that pressure is it made me put in the work. I wanted to be the absolute best I could be. If I could go in there and fly like the guys could, that credibility and capability (would speak) volumes. Over time, I gained courage in speaking up for myself, whereas I think early on I was just trying to survive.

Then, having deployed to combat, I gained a lot of confidence in doing hard things. These were my brothers I deployed to combat with. I gained their respect, and that to me meant more than anything.

Tell me about "Prepare, practice, plan."

I’ve expanded it now! I’ve gotten to this point where that’s the before, but there’s also the after. Any time, you’re going to do something hard, any time you’re going to put some effort in to do something, it’s all about preparing — doing the homework, doing the research, seek out lessons learned.

Then, practicing, whether that’s actual practice, visualization, having a tough conversation, whatever it may be. Then, planning for those contingencies, thinking about the things that could go wrong. We put in a lot of effort thinking about how we want it exactly to go, the process we want to take, but I think it’s also important to think about the things that could go wrong, and most importantly, what will you do when those things happen?

The other side of this is, now we’ve put in the work, now we have to go out and execute and perform this mission. Then, the follow-up.

You mention the follow-up. Is there one particular debrief you were a part of that stands out?

Red Flag was an exercise where we pushed ourselves to the absolute peak of performance, high threat, lots of airplanes. The idea behind it is if you train like you’re in combat, you’re more likely to be successful.

This was my upgrade to be a mission commander, which meant I ran the entire mission for that day. It’s a ton of pressure. We brief, we execute, then we come back in the debrief. You take ownership of whether you succeed or you fail. One of my takeaways was, inevitably, somebody is going to be late. Somebody is going to break. Some airplane will have a maintenance issue. It’s always, do I delay us? Do I cancel? Do I slide everything to the right by a few minutes because we’re waiting on one airplane?

It’s having confidence in your decision-making based on everything you’ve done but also leaning on other experts and knowing you don’t have to make those decisions alone. That’s a lesson in leadership and life. When you have to make a really difficult decision, one, you have to make the decision — you can only wait so long — but they also expect you to be informed.

If you don’t have all the answers, seek out experts who can help. You can’t waffle in indecision. You have to be willing to make the tough calls, make the decision and accept the consequences. People respect when you can own it.

What do you remember most about April 7, 2003 and those split-second decisions you were forced to make right after your aircraft was struck?

Flying over Baghdad, getting hit with a surface-to-air missile while supporting ground troops, that’s a pretty bad contingency. But it’s stuff we had talked about. We had talked about battle damage in our pre-brief, and I had personally thought about what I would do in that scenario. Yes, it was scary. It was terrifying. But I had thought about those things, and we had practiced them in our simulator.

“Aviate, navigate, communicate.” It’s focusing on what’s most important — flying the airplane. I had a little trouble with that, but it’s trying to get that airplane under control. Then, it’s navigate. O.K., now that this has occurred, what is my path forward? What are the things I need to do? What are the threats? Then, communicate. That means we communicate with others on our team when we need help.

So much of my training helped me prioritize under pressure and be calm in the chaos. It wasn’t the hardest decision I made, but it was the natural reaction of, "I really don’t want to eject. I’d rather try to survive this situation."

One thing that strikes me is how much short phrases — “Aviate, navigate, communicate,” or “Prepare, practice, plan” — seem to have helped you in fast-moving scenarios. Why were those so important?

I think when chaos hits, you only have so many brain bytes. You want to be able to have easy things you can go back to. The other thing we do is maintain aircraft control, analyze the situation, take the proper action, land as soon as conditions permit. It’s these things that are ingrained in us over and over again, so when the moment comes, it’s like, “I’ve been there. I know how to deal with this.”

They're something you can remember in the chaos. Even if it’s, "Take a deep breath. Take a step back." Simple phrases help in chaotic moments to break through all the noise.Those simple phrases helped me focus my efforts.

I'm curious — how did you decide on your book title, “Flying in the Face of Fear?”

There were several people who said, “I’m not sure you want to use ‘fear’ in the title. People don’t want to talk about fear. People don’t want to admit they’re scared." I was like, “Yeah, you’re right. That’s probably true.” Then, I thought, “No, that’s why I should have it in the title." That’s the reality. Nobody wants to talk about fear or admit they’re scared, but that’s the reason to normalize it. 

It's O.K. to be scared — it’s all about what you do with it. I see it with my kids. I see it in sports. I see it in business. We don't like to admit it, but we face fear, we face doubt, and we face uncertainty. 

Now, how can we leverage that and take action in the face of it?