Driving Naari Programme launched in Chandigarh
Mumbai
Captain Aarohi Pandit, a 23-year-old pilot from Mumbai, became the world’s first woman to cross the Atlantic Ocean solo in a Light Sports Aircraft (LSA), thrilling her family, friends and aviation circles here on Tuesday.
She landed her tiny aircraft at Iqaluit Airport in Canada, after a gruelling 3,000-km flight, under adverse and extreme weather conditions following take-off from Wick, Scotland (United Kingdom), with brief stopovers in Greenland and Iceland.
“This is part of her ongoing year-long global circumnavigation flight which was launched with her friend Keithair Misquitta on July 30. Aarohi continued solo from the UK to Canada and they will return to India by July 30,” said an excited Lynn de Souza, head of Social Access, a not-for-profit communications firm which sponsored the expedition.
“En route, she set another record as the first woman pilot to fly solo above the treacherous Greenland ice-cap in an LSA,” Lynn said.
A commercial pilot and LSA licence holder, Aarohi and Keithair Misquitta left India on the Women Empower (WE) Expedition in the tiny aircraft christened ‘Mahi’.
They flew over Punjab, Rajasthan, Gujarat, then to Pakistan — the first civilian LSA flight to land in the neighbouring country since 1947. Aarohi underwent an arduous seven-month preparatory training. — IANS
About ‘Mahi’
- Mahi is a Slovenian-built Pipistrel Sinus. With 80 horsepower on tap, it is just about as powerful as a Maruti Baleno and cruises at 215 kmph.
- It can’t fly longer than four hours at a stretch so there will be plenty of landings and halts
- Is equipped with multi-function displays in two-person cockpit and also has a ballistic parachute rescue system
