Cadet officer in the Lebanese Army Jana Sader. (Credit: @LebArmy/Twitter)
BEIRUT — Cadet officer in the Lebanese Army Jana Sader has become the first woman in the army to pilot the A-29 Super Tucano attack aircraft, the Lebanese Army tweeted on Sunday. Sader graduated from Laughlin Air Force Base in Texas, USA, after completing a nearly two-year-long training course, the army added.
تخرجت التلميذ الضابط جنى صادر من #الجيش_اللبناني من Laughlin Air Force Base في ولاية Texas الأميركية بعدما تابعت دورة لمدة سنتين تقريباً لتكون أول امرأة في الجيش تبدأ مسيرتها المهنية بطائرة القتال الهجومية سوبر توكانو A-29.#LebaneseArmy pic.twitter.com/MXCTrvvRgo
— الجيش اللبناني (@LebarmyOfficial) February 5, 2023
While Sader was widely hailed in the Lebanese media on Sunday as the Lebanese Army's first woman combat pilot, it was not clear from the army's tweet whether Sader is indeed the first woman to hold such a position or if she is the first to qualify to pilot this specific attack aircraft. L'Orient Today was unable to immediately reach the Lebanese Army for clarification.
According to the LAF website, women first enrolled in the Lebanese Army Forces "when the opportunity arose in the late 80s," during Lebanon's 1975-90 Civil War, as the army needed new conscripts in its various units, according to the Lebanese Army's website.
After the war, in October 1991, a government resolution specified that 10 percent of soldiers employed in the various departments of the Defense Ministry must be women. This resolution stipulates that the female recruits must follow the same training as male recruits, provided that physical capability is taken into consideration in different sports exercises and drills.
According to the army's website, the role of women in the army is not limited to the administrative side and has stretched to assuming tasks in combat units.
Sader achievement as a fighter pilot follows that of Civil aviation Captain Rola Hoteit, a pilot with the Lebanese national carrier, Middle East Airlines (MEA). In 2010, Hoteit became MEA's first ever female pilot, when she piloted her first solo flight to the Jordanian capital Amman.
MEA now has six women among its 190 pilots, and in 2020 Hoteit operated a flight with an all-women crew on board.