Ayesha Aziz, India’s youngest student pilot, who received her Pilot License in 2011 in age of 16, is all set to get her Commercial Pilot’s License in a day or two.

Ayesha gives all of her success credit to her father Abdul Aziz who always supported her daughter in realizing her dream. Her mother is a Kashmiri. The flights tour with her mother to Srinagar has been her 1st fascination towards pilot’s life. “I got fascinated by pilots. As I grew up, my fascination only increased and I finally landed up at Bombay Flying Club,” says Ayesha.

Though this young girl has motivated a huge crowd, but still has got pulled back by various negative comments like “A Muslim girl without hijab, not a perfect profession for a Kashmiri girl”.

Such comments were never able to bring her down as Ayesha believed in flying beyond the heights. Very confidently, Ayesha said “If the Prophet’s wife Hazrat Ayesha could ride a camel in a battle, why can’t I fly an aircraft?  We have to change our attitude and do justice to girls,”

Giving women empowerment justice, Ayesha said “Women must be allowed to come out of their comfort zone and take up more challenging careers than just becoming teachers, doctors or stay as housewives even if they are educated.”

“The first time I flew an aircraft with my parents on board, the greatest feeling I had was of independence … a sense of liberation,” says Ayesha.

From an early childhood, Ayesha Aziz was interested in being a pilot and her dreams took their direction when she graduated in aviation from Bombay Flying Club in 2016. Till now Aziz has flown single-engine aircraft for 200 hours that too for her training. Her next target is flying MiG-29 fighter jet at Sukul airbase, Russia.

Ayesha has even visited NASA for training in 2012. There, her experience and motivation was doubled when she got the chance to meet famed astronauts Sunita Williams and Jon A McBride.

She has also met Rabia Futehally, who was the first Indian woman to pilot an aircraft as a PPL holder in the 1960s.