Sarla Thukral

Sarla Thukral was among the first Indian women to fly an aircraft, earning her aviation pilot license in 1936 at the age of 21. Flying a Gypsy Moth biplane, she logged more than 1,000 hours in the air, much of that time through training and flying with the Lahore Flying Club, at a period when women pilots were still a rarity anywhere in the world and especially so in India. Her early flying career made her one of the pioneering figures of Indian civil aviation history in the years before independence. Thukral's flying career was cut short in 1939 when her husband, fellow pilot P. D. Sharma, died in a plane crash, after which she moved away from active flying and pursued other interests including painting and design. Even though her time in the cockpit was relatively brief, she remains recognized in India as one of the first women to hold a pilot's license and one of the earliest women anywhere to fly solo, a distinction that has kept her name attached to the founding history of Indian aviation.