Gandhinagar. On May 27th, Flight Lieutenant Parul Bhardwaj (Captain), Flying Officer Aman Nidhi (Co-Pilot) and Flight Lieutenant Hina Jaiswal (Flight Engineer) became country’s first ‘all-woman’ crew to fly a medium-lift helicopter. The crew flew a state of the art Mi-17V5 helicopter for a ‘Battle Inoculation Training’ mission taking off and landing from restricted areas at a forward base in South Western Command.
Flight Lieutenant Parul Bhardwaj hails from Mukerian in Punjab and is incidentally also the first woman pilot to fly the Mi-17V5 helicopter. Flying Officer Aman Nidhi hails from Ranchi and is also the first IAF woman pilot from Jharkhand. Flight Lieutenant Hina Jaiswal hails from Chandigarh and is the first woman Flight Engineer of the IAF.
The pilots had undergone their basic flying training at the ‘Helicopter Training School’ at Air Force Station Hakimpet followed by advanced training at Air Force Station Yelahanka. The helicopter was given pre-flight certification by Squadron Leader Richa Adhikari, the unit Engineering Officer.
