A pioneer in the air
After getting her start flying dead bodies to their hometowns, Beverley Bass ’74 went on to become the first woman to fly a Boeing 777.
by Jessie Milligan
Beverley Bass ’74, shown in this 1986 photo, was the first woman in the world to captain a Boeing 777.
She took the job no one else wanted, just to get her foot in the door.
Beverley Bass ’74 had her commercial pilot’s license by her sophomore year at TCU. Within a year, she took a job that none of the male pilots wanted. She worked for a Fort Worth mortician flying dead bodies back to their hometowns for burial.
“I went to school by day and flew bodies at night,” she says. “It was a small airplane, a Bonanza single engine and the coffins wouldn’t fit in so they just put the body on a stretcher.”
She earned $5 an hour, but she was flying toward a career where she would become the first woman in the world to captain the huge passenger jet, the Boeing 777.
“It’s all about building your flight hours, however you can get them. That job was my path to the airlines,” she says.
After graduation, Beverley went on to fly night freight out of Dallas’s Love Field. From 9 p.m. to 3 a.m. she flew machines parts and cancelled checks. But by the time American Airlines hired her in 1976 as only its third female pilot, her flight hours were at par with her main competitors, military pilots looking for jobs with airlines.
In 1978, she was a founding member of the International Society of Women Airline Pilots Plus 21.
Twenty-one women showed up for the first meeting; now there are 500 members.
Beverley worked as a flight engineer and a co-pilot before becoming American’s first female captain in 1986. She was at the helm of a 727 and later moved on to the 777.
“I was a novelty. Everybody was watching every move I made. People were very supportive but it was very new to them,” she says. “You certainly feel the pressure of being the first.”
Her career soared and she spent much of her career training other pilots, and finally, during her last 10 years, she became captain on long-haul flights to Europe and Asia.
On Sept. 11, 2001, she was flying for American from Paris to DFW when the U.S. airspace was closed after the terrorist attacks. Her flight was diverted to Newfoundland.
“On Jan. 28, 2008, I made my last landing in the triple 7 (Boeing 777) at DFW,” says the woman who retired early and now spends her time with her husband and two children at their rural Denton County.
