Sri Lanka Recruits Women Pilot Trainees

Sri Lanka’s air force began recruiting women Thursday to train as pilots for cockpits left vacant by the deaths of airmen in the country’s civil war.

“There is a place in the sky for women too,” ran the headline of an ad in both state-run daily newspapers.

There is no pool of trained pilots in Sri Lanka. The air force needs to recruit 100 pilots by next year, Air Marshal Oliver Ranasinghe says.

Women pilots would initially fly surveillance and transport planes and helicopters, an air force official said on condition of anonymity.

But flying those planes is as dangerous as piloting jet fighters. Of the 17 aircraft lost in the last 2-1/2 years, only four have been attack planes.

The guerrillas, who are fighting for a homeland for minority Tamils, have no air force of their own, but have shoulder-held, heat-seeking missiles to attack low flying planes.