Lotfia El Nady: The first Egyptian woman to obtain a pilot’s license in 1933.

She was only 26 when she piloted a plane from Cairo to Alexandria and became the first woman in the Arab world to fly a plane. Back then, female pilots weren’t a normal sight, even in other parts of the world. The first female pilot in the world was the French Raymonde de La Roche who received her license in 1910.

“My father’s omnipotence was suffocating. I learned to fly because I love to be free,” El Nady said on Take Off from the Sand, a documentary about her remarkable life. “It was a revolution from me, despite of me.”

She attended flying lessons twice a week and told her father she was in a study group as her mother secretly helped her become a pilot. She worked in Cairo Airport before getting her license to be near planes and cover the fees her parents wouldn’t.

 

“I said, okay, why wouldn’t I build myself on my own? If I want something that I believe is good,I must continue,” El Nady said. “As soon as I took off I felt the plane was light and I owned the whole world. Freedom. Freedom. The freedom you always dreamt of, Lotfia, well here it is, you got it.”

You can watch excerpts from the documentary here.

“I can’t tell you how ecstatic I became, I wasn’t in the least bit afraid; there was absolutely no fear.”