As a child of immigrants, Claudia Zapata-Cardone’s journey to becoming an Airbus 319/320 Captain is a remarkable story of grit, passion, and her parents’ steadfast belief in the American Dream. She is living proof that becoming a commercial pilot can be achieved, regardless of one’s socio-economic background, race, and gender. Captain Zapata-Cardone credits her father,…
While it took Georgia Louise Henderson a while to land on aviation, she always knew that she wanted to work with her hands. As a young girl, the Aircraft Maintenance Engineer (AME) apprentice and private pilot student from Scone, a town in the Upper Hunter Shire in the Hunter region of New South Wales (NSW),…
Leslie Irby always had big dreams for herself. From a young age she believed she would compete at the Olympic level in swimming, fencing or judo, always planning to make a wave in the sports world – until she fell in love with aviation. At 16, Irby’s parents, who had always set an example for…
Bessie Coleman (January 26, 1892 – April 30, 1926) was an early American civil aviator. She was the first African-American woman and first Native-American to hold a pilot license. She earned her pilot license from the Fédération Aéronautique Internationale on June 15, 1921, and was the first black person to earn an international pilot’s license….
In 1957, former Air Force B-26 pilot Marlon Green applied to multiple airlines without a response. Rather than accept his fate, he took his case to the U.S. Supreme Court, and won. Article By Lisa Tyler, FAA Aviation Safety Office During the golden age of air travel in the 1950s and 1960s, there appeared to…
At the Café Copoule in Paris in the spring of 1916, three American soldiers of the French Foreign Legion were commiserating with a fourth who was convalescing from a shrapnel wound. Jeff Dickson, a white Mississippian, asked Eugene Bullard, his injured black comrade in arms from Georgia, “Gene, suppose they find you’re too lame for…
South African businesswoman Siza Mzimela made history this past September after the launch of her domestic airline, Fly Blue Crane. She is the first Black woman to own and operate her own airline. Sizakele Petunia Mzimela is an airline industry veteran and no stranger to the executive level. She was the CEO for South African Express Airways…
Jonathan Strickland may as well have wings attached to his back as the young pilot already owns several world records in aviation. The Los Angeles native recently achieved another mark by becoming the youngest pilot hired by UPS at just 25 years old. At a very young age, Strickland developed a love of flying via…
Black women are continuing to break down barriers one first at a time. The latest woman representing #BlackGirlMagic is Andrea Lewis, a Delta Airlines flight attendant, who has just been named by the Georgia National Guard as its first Black female pilot. Andrea Lewis is the daughter of a military pilot and a commercial flight…
Black Chicago is synonymous with jazz and the blues, but few know about the city’s courageous black pilots who changed aviation history. When flying was still a novelty, these men and women took to the skies and in the process helped open the door for blacks to train and fly as pilots in World War II….