Denver mother-daughter team land in aviation history on Southwest flight

A mother-daughter duo made aviation history on July 23 when they flew Southwest Flight 3658 from Denver to Saint Louis. Captain Holly Petitt and First Officer Keely Petitt are the first mother-daughter team to pilot a Southwest flight.

The Petitts are from Denver and Holly has been flying for Southwest for 18 years after starting her aviation career as a flight attendant but she quickly learned she wanted to fly the planes.

Southwest prides itself on really being a family so it's no surprise that one of Holly's three children found her way into the cockpit. 

Keely was a little girl when she took a trip with her mom to San Diego. One of her mother's coworkers started asking her about her volleyball tournaments and piano lessons. Keely said was blown away by the questions. "The Southwest Family welcomed me with open arms," Keely said on Southwest's community website.

When Keely was 14, she and her siblings went on a discovery flight and her fate was sealed. She followed in her mother's footsteps, even landing a internship at Southwest in 2017.

Keely wanted to land at Southwest "Southwest was always the end goal for me," said Keely. "There was really never any other option."

She made it back and finally sat down in the cockpit with her mom.

"It's been a dream come true," said Holly in the same Southwest article. "First, I found this career and fell in love with it, and then that one of my kids fell into this and in love with this career, too... It's surreal." 

UPDATE: Southwest Airlines introduces kids to Colorado mother-daughter duo making aviation history