An impressive and ever-growing league of African women in aerospace are challenging sexist views that have limited their gender thus far. We take a look at some of these pioneers from around the continent.
Africa got its first female pilot in 1964 but for many years thereafter women did not rise to take on the mantle. Instead women filled the ranks of flight attendants, leaving the men to dominate the role of pilot. However, with the number of educated and empowered women rising, so do their numbers in male-dominated fields. Here are some of the women who are breaking barriers in African skies.
Here is the list of some of Africa’s inaugural female pilots
Adeola Ogunmola Sowemimo – Nigeria
Adeola Ogunmola Sowemimo has become the first Nigerian female Pilot to work for Qatar Airways, and also the first to fly the Boeing 787 Dreamliner across the Atlantic. Sowemimo is now in the same league with Kenya’s Captain Irene Koki, Ethiopia’s Captain Amsale Gulau and a few other African women, who fly the Boeing 787 Dreamliner.
An indigene of Ogbomosho, Oyo state, Sowemimo attended Ladoke Akintola University, Ogbomosho, and trained as a pilot At Sunrise Aviation Academy in the United States of America. She is happily married to Seunfunmi Olamilekan Sowemimo.
Even though the Middle East is home to some of the world’s biggest and most recognisable airlines like Emirates and Etihad, it’s an extremely challenging region for women hoping to get into the cockpit.
Qatar Airways is one of the first in the region to introduce female pilots with women accounting for 44 percent of the airline’s workforce as at 2018, Akbar Al Baker, its chief executive officer disclosed in a statement.
Irene Koki Mutungi – KenyaCaptain Irene
Koki Mutungi, 42, is the first female pilot in Kenya and the first woman to earn the title of captain in Africa. She is also the first pilot of the first Kenyan Dreamliner, Boeing 787. She has received several awards in a male dominated category. Her father was also a pilot with the Kenya Airways. He has since retired and is an aviation consultant.
Mutugi attended Moi Girls School Nairobi. After graduating from high school in 1992, she enrolled in flight school at Nairobi’s Wilson Airport, where she obtained her Private Pilot’s License. She continued her pilot education in Oklahoma City in the United States where she was awarded the Commercial Pilot’s License, by the Federal Aviation Authority.
Mutugi returned to Kenya in 1995 and was hired by Kenya Airways, as their first female pilot. She was the only female pilot at the airline for the next six years. In 2004, she became the first African woman to qualify to captain a commercial aircraft, when she qualified to command the Boeing 737. She has since qualified to command the Boeing 767 . She then took the conversion course which allowed her to transition to commanding a Boeing 787 Dreamliner.
Kenya Airways then promoted her to Captain of the B787, thus making her the first African female Boeing 787 Captain in the world.
Patricia Mawuli – Ghana
Patricia Mawuli is Ghana’s first female civilian pilot and the first woman in West Africa certified to build and maintain rotax engines. As a young girl, she wistfully watched the planes pass overhead, wishing one day to fly one herself.
The 32-year-old aircraft mechanic and only female flight instructor in West Africa has broken gender barriers by rising from clearing tree trunks for free to becoming the director of an academy called AV-Tech that provided young Ghanaian girls with the skills, training and inspiration to become pilots.Mawuli taught girls and young people in Ghana and in the United States how to build aircrafts. She was invited to the Experimental Aircraft Association AirVenture fly-in in Oshkosh, Wisconsin twice and on one occasion, she helped the young team of young Americans with no prior aircraft building experience to assemble a Zenith CH750 aircraft in a record one week.
Esther Mbabazi – Rwanda
Esther Mbabazi is a professional commercial airline pilot in Rwanda, the fourth-largest economy in the East African Community. She is the first female in Rwanda to become certified as a commercial airline pilot. She flies for RwandAir, the national airline of Rwanda
Mbabazi became the first female Rwandese pilot in 2012. She decided to become a pilot few years after her father was killed in a crash; the plane he was flying in overshot the runway landing in the Democratic Republic of Congo. She said that the death of her father has influenced her decision to become a pilot.
Mbabazi was born in 1988, to Rwandese parents. Her father and mother were pastors and the family moved around a lot. The family moved back to Rwanda in 1996. Mbabazi trained at the Soroti Flying School in Uganda, before RwandAir sponsored her to continue her training in Miami, Florida, in the United States.
Asnath Mahapa – South Africa
Asnath Mahapa became the first black female pilot trainee in South Africa in 2003. She is the founder of the African College of Aviation (Pty) Limited. She has also flown for Red Cross and World Food Programmes in Central and West Africa. She was appointed as the beneficiary of South African Airways level two cadet pilot training programme, and the recipient of the airline’s bursary scheme set aside for previously disadvantaged communities. She was influenced to become a pilot when she heard her aunty talk about her neighbour, who was a pilot.
Ouma Laouali – NigerIt will be recalled that, on the 21st of October, 2015, Lieutenant Ouma Laouali, 28, became the first female pilot in Niger. She was one of the Nigerien Airforce members, trained by the United States as part of a programme to help fight Boko Haram, the Islamist terrorist group active in the region. She started By flying a Cessna airplane, two of which were given to Niger by the US in a ceremony in Niger’s capital Niamey, as part of the US$24 million package of training and aircraft. Since October 2015, US has maintained a drone base in Niamey, and is reported to be building another in Agadez a town in the Nigerien desert, as part of its counter-terrorism activities.
Laouali has flown the Cessna 208 Caravan, an intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance (ISR) aircraft, which can perform a variety of military tasks.
Chinyere Kalu – Nigeria
Captain Chinyere Kalu, is the first female pilot in Nigeria. Capt. Chinyere’s decision to start a career in Aviation was spurred by her adventurous aunt, who was also the first woman from her hometown to travel overseas. She was made a member of the Order of the Federal Republic (MFR) in the 2006 National Honours. In 2011, she was appointed the Rector and Chief Executive of the Nigerian College of Aviation Technology (NCAT), which is the largest aviation training institute in Africa.
Aluel Bol Aluenge – South Sudan
South Sudan’s first female pilot Aluel Bol Aluenge rose to the position of captain with major American airline company Delta Air Lines after working with Ethiopian Airlines and Fly Dubai in 2018. She hails from South Sudan’s Lakes State and is the daughter of the late Justice James Bol. She was a refugee in Kenya during her country’s ethnic and political conflict.
