The Kishugu® Aviation Training Organisation (ATO) bids farewell to the South African Police Service (SAPS), female students.

A delegation from the SAPS training division visiting Kishugu® Aviation on Friday, 30 August, for the final debrief on the training of this dynamic group of female pilots. The nine young ladies were selected by the South African Police Service to become pilots for the SAPS air wing. The cost of their training was met by the Transport Education Training Authority (TETA). Tshomarelo Moima (24) from Pretoria, Tebogo Boshielo (22) from Pretoria, Linah Mphanga (25) from Hazyview, Mpumalanga, Happiness Sibiya (22) from Mpumalanga, Lindelwa Mdaki (22) from Durban, Usisipho Fanie (26) from Western Cape, Gloria Banda (21) from Danville Pretoria and Tobeka Shozi (20) from Pietermaritzburg, KZN.

Their success is all the more remarkable since many of them did not have a driver’s license, nor had any of them ever been in light aircraft before their training began. They were selected as part of a SAPS initiative aimed at skills development and creating jobs. Kishugu® ATO won the contract to train the pilots after an extremely tough-tender vetting process. “We are extremely proud of these young ladies and very happy with Kishugu® on the sterling job of training these ladies.

We will definitely be using Kishugu® again to train more pilots, perhaps as early as January 2019,” says Major General Gossmann. Since arriving at Kishugu® ATO in April 2016 these women have been taking to the skies on almost a daily basis building hours and experience. To date, the women accumulated over 2,200 hours of flying.