Navy's first batch of three women pilots ready for maritime reconnaissance mission on Dornier aircraft

Lieutenant Divya Sharma, Lt Shubhangi Swaroop and Lt Shivangi are now ready to take on all MR missions on Dornier aircraft

Crashing yet another glass barrier, three young women officers of Indian Navy on Thursday became the first batch of women to fly the Dornier surveillance aircraft that keeps an eye on the Indian Ocean region.

Lieutenant Divya Sharma, who hails from Malviya Nagar in New Delhi; Lt Shubhangi Swaroop from Tilhar, Uttar Pradesh; and Lt Shivangi from Muzaffarpur, Bihar; are the three women officers now qualified to fly the Dorniers in all operational missions.

They are part of half a dozen naval aviators, who completed the Dornier Operational Flying Training course and graduated as ‘Fully operational Maritime Reconnaissance Pilots. The passing out ceremony was held at INS Garuda, Kochi.

The officers underwent basic flying training partly with Indian Air Force and partly with the Navy before the DOFT course.

Amongst the three women pilots operationalised for maritime reconnaissance flying, Lt Shivangi was the first to qualify as a naval pilot in December 2019, an Indian Navy spokesperson said in a statement.

This comes a month after two other women officers of the Indian Navy got their wings to serve as observers in naval choppers, making them the first women officers to operate from a warship.

The Dornier flying course comprises one month of the ground training phase, at some of the professional schools and eight months of flying training at the Dornier Squadron (INAS 550) of the Southern Naval Command.

In fact, Lt Divya Sharma was adjudged ‘First in Flying’ while her coursemate Lt Shivam Pandey was adjudged ‘First in Ground'.

Since 2016, the IAF inducted 10 women fighter pilots, including Flt Lt Shivangi Singh, who would fly the IAF's most modern Rafale combat jets.

As of February 2020, the Indian Navy has 527 women officers whereas IAF and Indian Army has 1,601 and 1,648 of them respectively. The number of women officers recruited by the Navy in 2017, 2018, and 2019 is 57, 38, and 54 respectively.