Mohana Singh Jitarwal is one of the first female fighter pilots of India. She was declared as the first female combat pilot along with two of her cohort,

Bhawana Kanth Bhawana Kanth is one of the first female fighter pilots of India. She was declared as the first combat pilot along with two of her cohort, Mohana Singh, and Avani Chaturvedi. The trio was inducted into the Indian Air Force fighter squadron in ...

, and

Avani Chaturvedi Squadron Leader Avani Chaturvedi (born 27 October 1993) is an Indian pilot from Rewa district, Madhya Pradesh. She was declared as the first woman combat pilot along with two of her cohorts, Mohana Singh Jitarwal, and Bhawana Kanth. The trio wa ...

. All three women pilots were inducted into the

Indian Air Force The Indian Air Force (IAF) is the air arm of the Indian Armed Forces. Its complement of personnel and aircraft assets ranks third amongst the air forces of the world. Its primary mission is to secure Indian airspace and to conduct aerial w ...

fighter squadron in June 2016. They were formally commissioned by Defence Minister

Manohar Parrikar Manohar Parrikar (born Manohar Gopalkrishna Prabhu Parrikar; 13 December 1955 – 17 March 2019) was an Indian politician and leader of the Bharatiya Janata Party who served as Chief Minister of Goa from 14 March 2017 until his death. Previous ...

. After the government of India decided to open the fighter stream in India Air Force for women on an experimental basis, these three women were the first to be selected for the program.

Biography

Mohana Singh is from khatehpura(jjn.) Mohana Singh completed her schooling from The Air Force School, New Delhi and BTech in Electronics & Communication from Global Institute of Management and Emerging Technologies,

Amritsar Amritsar (), historically also known as Rāmdāspur and colloquially as ''Ambarsar'', is the second largest city in the Indian state of Punjab, after Ludhiana. It is a major cultural, transportation and economic centre, located in the Majha r ...

, Punjab. Her father Pratap Singh is a serving Indian Air Force personnel and mother Manju Singh is a teacher. While growing up, Singh was fond of sports like

roller skating Roller skating is the act of traveling on surfaces with roller skates. It is a recreational activity, a sport, and a form of transportation. Roller rinks and skate parks are built for roller skating, though it also takes place on streets, sid ...

badminton Badminton is a racquet sport played using racquets to hit a shuttlecock across a net. Although it may be played with larger teams, the most common forms of the game are "singles" (with one player per side) and "doubles" (with two players pe ...

and other activities like singing and painting. On 9 March 2020, she was awarded with

Nari Shakti Puraskar The Nari Shakti Puraskar is an annual award given by the Ministry of Women and Child Development of the Government of India to individual women or to institutions that work towards the cause of women empowerment. It is the highest civilian hono ...

by President

Ram Nath Kovind Ram Nath Kovind (; born 1 October 1945) is an Indian politician who served as the 14th President of India from 2017 to 2022. He is a member of the Bharatiya Janata Party. He is the second person after K. R. Narayanan, from the Dalit community ...

Career

In June 2019, she became the first women fighter pilot of

to become a fully operational by day on a Hawk Mk.132 advance jet trainer. She had completed more than 380 hours of incident free flying on Hawk Mk.132 with training in both Air-to-Air and Air-to-Ground fighting mode in 2019.

Biography

Career

References

Further reading