At ease on high seas, woman pilot storms into male bastion | Kolkata … – Times of India

KOLKATA: At a time when all eyes were on Avani Chaturvedi, Mohana Singh and Bhawana Kanth as they were commissioned into the Indian Air Force as the country's first women fighter pilots, Sneha Kathayat and three other young officers like her had already stormed a male bastion in India's defence forces. They had been trained to pilot Air Cushion Vehicles (ACVs) or hovercrafts that are used by the Indian Coast Guard in combat roles off the coasts of Gujarat and Bengal.

Assistant Commandant Kathayat had dreamt big when she joined the ICG on July 3, 2011. She was not one to be satisfied with an administrative job on shore and when the opportunity arose she jumped to it.

Now, as the first woman hovercraft pilot in the country, she is posted at Haldia and regularly patrols India's maritime boundary with Bangladesh and areas close to the Sunderbans, searching for smugglers, poachers and other anti-national elements.

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At ease on high seas, woman pilot storms into male bastion | Kolkata ... - Times of India