Mohana Singh Jitarwal becomes first woman fighter pilot to fly Hawk jet

Flight Lieutenant Mohana Singh has become the first woman fighter pilot to fly by day a Hawk advanced jet aircraft, a defence release has said.

She achieved the feat at the Kalaikunda Air Force Station in West Bengal on Thursday, it said.

"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 gruelling 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," the release issued on Friday said.

Her training involved flying both air-to-air combat and air-to-ground missions, it added.

She has undertaken many practice missions, which involved firing of rockets, guns and dropping high calibre bombs and also participated in various Air Force Level flying exercises, the release said.

She has a total of over 500 hours of incident-free flying, of which 380 hours are on the Hawk Mk 132 jet. She had, along with two other women pilots, Bhawana Kanth and Avani Chaturvadi, joined the fighter stream in June 2016, it said.

A week back, Flight Lieutenant Bhawana Kanth became fully operational by day on MiG-21 Bison, the release added.

-PTI