Born: 22 March 1913, Turkey
Died: 22 March 2001
Country most active: Turkey
Also known as: NA
Turkish aviator Sabiha Gökçen became the world’s first known combat pilot at age 23, and went on to fly around 8,000 hours and participate in more than 30 military operations over the course of her career. Sabiha Gökçen International Airport in Istanbul is named for her, and opened just 2 months before her death in 2001.
Gökçen was the adopted daughter of Turkish president Mustafa Kemal Atatürk, an avid proponent of aviation who supported her pursuit of flying, including as a military pilot. He instructed the head of the newly opened Türkkuşu (Turkish Bird) Flight School to accept her as the first female trainee in 1935. She was also sent to Crimea for an advanced course in glider and powered aircraft piloting, and later received additional training at Eskişehir’s aviation school, Tayyare Mektebi. Although women were not accepted into Turkey’s military academies like Tayyare Mektebi at the time, Atatürk ordered an exception for her from 1936 to 1937 and she trained to become a military pilot with the 1st Airplane Regiment, flying bomber and fighter planes and participating in training exercises.
In 1937, she participated in the Dersim Massacre, also known as the Dersim genocide, which Turkish prime minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan called “one of the most tragic events of our near history” in 2011. She bombed Kurds that the government called “rebels” and said in an interview in 1956, “They gave us the order ‘Shoot every living thing you see’, we were firebombing even the goats which were the food of the rebels.” For these actions, which could arguably be considered war crimes, she was awarded a commendation and the Turkish Aeronautical Association’s first Murassa (Jeweled) Medal.
By 1938, she was made chief trainer at Türkkuşu, serving as a flight instructor until 1954 and becoming a member of the Turkish Aeronautical Association’s executive board. Her students included four female aviators: Edibe Subaşı, Yıldız Uçman, Sahavet Karapas and Nezihe Viranyalı. The TAA published her memoir, A Life Along the Path of Atatürk, in 1981, commemorating his 100th birthday.