Mohana Singh: First woman fighter pilot to fly Hawk jet

Flight Lieutenant Mohana Singh created history on Friday as the first ever woman pilot to become fully operational on a Hawk advanced jet aircraft.

She achieved the feat at the Kalaikunda Air Force Station in West Bengal.

“ Flight Lieutenant Mohana Singh, became the first woman fighter pilot to become fully operational by day on Hawk advanced jet aircraft as she landed after a grueling 4 Aircraft combat sortie at Air Force station Kalaikunda , West Bengal, which was the last syllabus sortie, of being fully operational on the Hawk Jets,” stated a release by the Defence Ministry on Friday.

Lieutenant Singh achieved the feat after four-hour long combat sortie which was the final one in her syllabus in Hawk jets.

“ Her training involved flying both Air to Air combat and Air to Ground missions. She has undertaken many practice missions which involved firing of rockets, guns and dropping high caliber bombs and also participated in various Air Force-level flying exercises. She has a total of over 500 hrs of incident-free flying of which 380 hrs are on the Hawk Mk 132 jet,” stated the release.

Singh enrolled into the fighter stream along with Bhawana Kanth and Avani Chaturvedi in June 2016.

“ She along with two other girls Bhawana Kanth and Avani Chaturvedi joined the fighter stream in June 2016. Flt Lt Bhawana Kanth just became fully operational by day on MiG-21 Bison a week back,” stated the release.