LIEUTENANT OLWETHU SOGA
SOUTH AFRICAN AIR FORCE FLIGHT ENGINEER
Olwethu is, to-date, the only female flight engineer in the South African Air Force (SAAF). She was born in Butterworth, in the Eastern Cape, and qualified in 2008 as the first and only woman flight engineer in the SAAF. In 2010, she qualified to take leadership as 16 Squadron technical officer – the person in charge of all technical aspects of running the squadron. Her flying tasks have included night flying, mountain flying, formation flying, night specialist operations, sea rescues, mountain rescues, casualty evacuation, gunnery war simulation exercises, and firefighting and cargo-slinging.