Leyla Mammadbeyova

Leyla Mammadbeyova, born Zeynalova, was the first Azerbaijani female aviator and is regarded as the first female Muslim pilot and parachutist, as well as the first woman pilot of Transcaucasia, Southern Europe and Southwest Asia. Born in 1909, she trained at the Baku Airclub and made her first flight in 1931, studied at an aviators school in Moscow in 1932, and on 17 March 1933 became the second woman parachutist in the Soviet Union with a jump from a Polikarpov Po-2 at Moscow's Tushino Airfield. She won a South Caucasus parachute competition in 1934 and by 1941 was a Squadron Leader of the Soviet Army. Barred from combat flying during the Second World War because she was raising children, she launched glider and parachutist courses at Baku that trained hundreds of combat pilots and about 4,000 paratroopers. She flew for the last time in 1949, served in the DOSAAF's Baku branch until 1961 and died in 1989.