Bhawna Chaudhary becomes first woman flight engineer in BSF Air Wing
The Border Security Force (BSF) air wing has got its first woman flight engineer in its over 50 years history following completion of a first in-house training capsule.
Inspector Bhawna Chaudhary along with four male subordinate officers were recently awarded their flying badges by BSF director general Daljit Singh Chawdhary.
The border force has been tasked to operate the aviation unit of the Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) since 1969 and it caters to the operational requirements of all the paramilitary forces and special forces like the NSG and the NDRF.
Officials told PTI that five subordinate officers were “trained ab-initio by the instructors of the BSF air wing and they recently completed their two-month long training.” The five personnel were skilled for 130 hours during the two months in-house training starting August and they also had real exposure to the work as various assets of the BSF air wing flew operational sorties including during the recent floods in Punjab and other states.
“The BSF air wing has been facing a critical shortage of flight engineers in its Mi-17 helicopter fleet.
“The Indian Air Force (IAF) trained the first batch of 3 subordinate officers but the second batch of five personnel could not get a training slot there due to various constraints,” an official said.