{"id":4531146,"date":"2026-07-08T15:45:00","date_gmt":"2026-07-08T13:45:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/migflug.com\/jetflights\/?p=4531146"},"modified":"2026-07-10T18:17:41","modified_gmt":"2026-07-10T16:17:41","slug":"sabiha-gokcen-first-female-fighter-pilot","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/migflug.com\/jetflights\/fr\/sabiha-gokcen-first-female-fighter-pilot\/","title":{"rendered":"Sabiha G\u00f6k\u00e7en: Daughter of the Turkish Sky"},"content":{"rendered":"<style>.et_pb_title_container h1.entry-title { padding-top: 40px !important; }<\/style>\n<p>The morning of 5 May 1935 smelled of dust, spring grass and engine oil. On a new airfield outside Ankara, the young Turkish Republic was opening a flight school with the kind of ceremony it loved best: gliders wheeling against the Anatolian sky, foreign parachutists blooming white above the crowd, and, at the centre of it all, Mustafa Kemal Atat\u00fcrk, watching his country learn to look up.<\/p>\n<p>Beside him stood a slight woman of twenty-two with dark, serious eyes. She was his adopted daughter, and the parachutes undid her completely. Atat\u00fcrk noticed. Would she like to jump too? Before the day was out, the president had instructed the school's director to enrol her as its first female student.<\/p>\n<p>Her name was Sabiha G\u00f6k\u00e7en, and the name itself was a kind of prophecy. Atat\u00fcrk had chosen the surname for her only six months earlier, when Turkey's new Surname Law required one: G\u00f6k\u00e7en, from <em>g\u00f6k<\/em> &mdash; \"of the sky.\" She had never touched an aircraft. Within two years she would be, by Guinness World Records' reckoning, the first woman in history to fly a fighter in combat &mdash; a distinction that carries both glory and a shadow.<\/p>\n<div style=\"background:#f5f5f5;padding:20px 24px;border-radius:8px;margin:8px 0 28px\"><p style=\"margin:0 0 10px;font-weight:700;font-size:17px\">Quick Facts<\/p><ul style=\"margin:0;padding-left:20px;line-height:1.8\"><li>Born 22 March 1913 in Bursa; died 22 March 2001 in Ankara &mdash; on her 88th birthday<\/li><li>Orphaned young; adopted by Mustafa Kemal Atat\u00fcrk after meeting him in Bursa in 1925, aged 12<\/li><li>Enrolled as the T\u00fcrkku\u015fu flight school's first female trainee at its opening, 5 May 1935<\/li><li>Trained on military aircraft at Eski\u015fehir in 1936-37 under a special programme &mdash; war academies did not admit women<\/li><li>Flew bombing missions in the 1937 Dersim operations; recognised by Guinness World Records as the first female combat pilot<\/li><li>Logged roughly 8,000 flight hours; chief trainer of T\u00fcrkku\u015fu from 1938<\/li><li>Istanbul's Sabiha G\u00f6k\u00e7en International Airport, opened January 2001, is named for her<\/li><\/ul><\/div>\n\n<div style=\"position:relative;padding-bottom:56.25%;height:0;overflow:hidden;margin:24px 0 8px\"><iframe class=\"skip-lazy\" data-no-lazy=\"1\" loading=\"eager\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/vTgwB2sxVOc\" style=\"position:absolute;top:0;left:0;width:100%;height:100%;border:0;border-radius:8px\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/div><p style=\"font-size:13px;color:#777;text-align:center;font-style:italic;margin:0 0 24px\">A documentary portrait of Sabiha G\u00f6k\u00e7en, from Bursa orphan to record-setting aviator.<\/p>\n<h2 style=\"padding-top:22px\">An Orphan at the President's Door<\/h2>\n<p>She was born in Bursa on 22 March 1913, in the last exhausted years of the Ottoman Empire, to Mustafa \u0130zzet Bey and Hayriye Han\u0131m &mdash; a family, by the official account, of Bosniak origin. Both parents died while she was a child, and she was raised in poverty by her brother. Then, in 1925, the founder of the Republic came to Bursa on an official visit, and a twelve-year-old girl did something remarkable: she asked permission to speak with him.<\/p>\n<p>What she wanted was an education &mdash; a place at boarding school. What she got was a family. Struck by her nerve and moved by her circumstances, Atat\u00fcrk asked her brother's permission to take her to the \u00c7ankaya presidential residence in Ankara, where she joined the several other daughters he had adopted. She studied at the \u00c7ankaya Primary School and later at the \u00dcsk\u00fcdar American Academy in Istanbul.<\/p>\n<p>It is worth pausing on how deliberate this was. Atat\u00fcrk had no biological children; he adopted daughters and raised them as public arguments &mdash; living proof of what the new, secular, westernising Republic intended for its women. In 1934, Turkish women won the full right to vote and stand for parliament, ahead of France and Switzerland. The president's daughters were expected to embody the point. None of them would embody it quite like Sabiha.<\/p>\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-large\" style=\"margin:0 0 24px\"><img data-opt-id=1072319696  fetchpriority=\"high\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"skip-lazy\" data-no-lazy=\"1\" loading=\"eager\" src=\"https:\/\/ml5psubhxdln.i.optimole.com\/cb:0e0_.b970\/w:auto\/h:auto\/q:mauto\/ig:avif\/https:\/\/migflug.com\/jetflights\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/4\/2026\/07\/ataturk-sabiha-gokcen-diyarbakir.jpg\" alt=\"Ataturk and Sabiha Gokcen in Diyarbakir\" style=\"max-width:100%;height:auto;border-radius:6px\"><figcaption style=\"font-size:13px;color:#777;text-align:center;margin-top:6px;font-style:italic\">G\u00f6k\u00e7en in uniform beside Atat\u00fcrk's entourage in Diyarbak\u0131r, 1937. Photo: Wikimedia Commons, public domain<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<h2 style=\"padding-top:22px\">Turkish Bird<\/h2>\n<p>At T\u00fcrkku\u015fu &mdash; \"Turkish Bird,\" the civil aviation school of the Turkish Aeronautical Association &mdash; she trained first as a glider pilot and parachutist, then was sent with seven male classmates to the Soviet Union, to Crimea, for an advanced course in powered flight. The trip broke off in grief: in Moscow she learned that her adoptive sister Zehra had died, and she returned to Turkey and withdrew from the world for a time. It was Atat\u00fcrk who insisted she climb back into a cockpit. On 25 February 1936 she flew a powered aircraft for the first time.<\/p>\n<div style=\"background:#f8f9fa;border-left:4px solid #5C91FF;padding:20px 22px;margin:18px 0 24px;border-radius:0 8px 8px 0;font-size:16px;line-height:1.7;display:flex;gap:20px;align-items:flex-start\"><div><em>&ldquo;Perhaps you'll be the first woman military pilot in the world... For the world's first military woman pilot to be of Turkish descent would be a proud event, you can imagine, right?&rdquo;<\/em><div style=\"margin-top:10px;font-size:14px;color:#555\"><strong>Mustafa Kemal Atat\u00fcrk<\/strong> &mdash; to Sabiha G\u00f6k\u00e7en, 1936, as recounted in her official Turkish Air Force biography<\/div><\/div><\/div>\n<p>Turkey's war academies did not admit women, so Atat\u00fcrk simply routed around them. A personalised uniform was made; a special eleven-month programme was arranged at the military aviation school at Eski\u015fehir for the academic year 1936-37. Afterwards she spent six months with the 1st Airplane Regiment at Eski\u015fehir airbase, flying bombers and fighters alongside commissioned officers.<\/p>\n<p>In 1937 she flew in the Aegean and Thrace military exercises and drew praise for her airmanship. Then, that summer, came the assignment that made her a record-holder &mdash; and the one that history weighs very differently now.<\/p>\n<h2 style=\"padding-top:22px\">The Shadow of Dersim<\/h2>\n<p>In 1937 and 1938 the Turkish state waged a brutal campaign against a rebellion in Dersim, a remote eastern region populated largely by Kurdish Alevis. Aircraft flew sortie after sortie against villages as well as fighters, and thousands of people &mdash; combatants and civilians &mdash; were killed or deported. G\u00f6k\u00e7en flew bombing missions in those operations; a General Staff report noted the \"serious damage\" caused by her 50-kilogram bomb. For her performance she received a commendation and the Turkish Aeronautical Association's first jewelled Murassa Medal.<\/p>\n<div style=\"background:#f8f9fa;border-left:4px solid #d32f2f;padding:20px 22px;margin:18px 0 24px;border-radius:0 8px 8px 0;font-size:16px;line-height:1.7;display:flex;gap:20px;align-items:flex-start\"><div><em>&ldquo;They gave us the order &lsquo;Shoot every living thing you see&rsquo;, we were firebombing even the goats which were the food of the rebels.&rdquo;<\/em><div style=\"margin-top:10px;font-size:14px;color:#555\"><strong>Sabiha G\u00f6k\u00e7en<\/strong> &mdash; 1956 interview with Halit K\u0131van\u00e7, Milliyet, on the Dersim operations<\/div><\/div><\/div>\n<p>She said those words herself, to the newspaper Milliyet, in 1956 &mdash; without apparent regret. There is no honest way to tell her story around this chapter, and Turkey itself has begun to say so: in 2011, then prime minister Recep Tayyip Erdo\u011fan issued a formal apology for Dersim, calling it \"one of the most tragic events of our near history.\"<\/p>\n<p>So the world's first female combat pilot earned the title in a campaign against her own country's civilians. Both facts are true at once. The Turkish press of 1937 saw only the first, and crowned her \"The Flying Girl\" &mdash; the airborne face of the Republic's new woman.<\/p>\n<h2 style=\"padding-top:22px\">The Flying Girl<\/h2>\n<p>In June 1938 she flew a five-day tour of the Balkan capitals to enormous acclaim, collecting decorations from Yugoslavia and Romania along the way. It was aviation as diplomacy, and she was superb at it: composed, photogenic, faultlessly precise in the air.<\/p>\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-large\" style=\"margin:0 0 24px\"><img data-opt-id=1512907784  fetchpriority=\"high\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"skip-lazy\" data-no-lazy=\"1\" loading=\"eager\" src=\"https:\/\/ml5psubhxdln.i.optimole.com\/cb:0e0_.b970\/w:auto\/h:auto\/q:mauto\/ig:avif\/https:\/\/migflug.com\/jetflights\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/4\/2026\/07\/sabiha-gokcen-breguet-19.jpg\" alt=\"Sabiha Gokcen and colleagues with a Breguet 19\" style=\"max-width:100%;height:auto;border-radius:6px\"><figcaption style=\"font-size:13px;color:#777;text-align:center;margin-top:6px;font-style:italic\">G\u00f6k\u00e7en and fellow aviators in front of a Br\u00e9guet 19 &mdash; the type she flew in her military training years. Photo: Wikimedia Commons, public domain<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>That same year she was appointed chief trainer of the T\u00fcrkku\u015fu flight school, a post she held into the mid-1950s, sitting on the association's executive board and personally training four female aviators. By the time she gave up flying in 1964, she had logged around 8,000 hours. In 1981 she published her memoir, <em>A Life Along the Path of Atat\u00fcrk<\/em>.<\/p>\n<p>The honours kept arriving long after the propellers stopped. The FAI awarded her its Gold Air Medal in 1991. In 1996 the United States Air Force put her on its poster of the twenty greatest aviators in history &mdash; the only woman among them.<\/p>\n<div style=\"display:flex;justify-content:center;margin:2em 0\"><blockquote class=\"reddit-embed-bq\" data-embed-height=\"500\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.reddit.com\/r\/todayilearned\/comments\/bz9a7v\/til_that_kemal_atat%C3%BCrk_gave_his_adopted_daughter\/\">TIL that Kemal Atat\u00fcrk gave his adopted daughter Sabiha a surname meaning \"belonging to the sky\"<\/a><\/blockquote><script async src=\"https:\/\/embed.reddit.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/div>\n<h2 style=\"padding-top:22px\">Names and Silences<\/h2>\n<p>In January 2001, Istanbul opened its second airport and named it Sabiha G\u00f6k\u00e7en International. She lived just long enough to see it: she died of heart failure in Ankara on 22 March 2001 &mdash; her 88th birthday. Today her name is spoken over tannoys by millions of travellers who may know nothing else about her.<\/p>\n<p>Three years after her death, her story acquired one more contested layer. In February 2004 the Turkish-Armenian newspaper Agos published an article by editor Hrant Dink, in which a woman named Hripsime Sebilciyan claimed to be G\u00f6k\u00e7en's niece &mdash; and that G\u00f6k\u00e7en was born an Armenian orphan taken from an orphanage after the genocide. The mainstream daily H\u00fcrriyet picked the story up, and the reaction was ferocious: the Turkish General Staff declared the debate an abuse of \"national values,\" and her adoptive sister \u00dclk\u00fc Adatepe insisted on the official account. The claims remain unproven and disputed; what is not disputed is the ugliness they exposed. Dink was assassinated by a nationalist gunman in 2007, and many observers count the G\u00f6k\u00e7en affair among the events that painted the target on him.<\/p>\n<p>Even her famous record carries a footnote &mdash; France's Marie Marvingt flew bombing missions in 1915, and Russia's Evgeniya Shakhovskaya flew military reconnaissance a year earlier, though neither as a trained fighter pilot, which is why Guinness gives G\u00f6k\u00e7en the title. Perhaps that is the fitting summary of Sabiha G\u00f6k\u00e7en: every superlative about her requires a second sentence. This week, with Turkish air power back in the headlines over the F-35, it is worth remembering where that story began &mdash; with an orphan from Bursa who asked a president for an education and was handed the sky.<\/p>\n<div style=\"position:relative;padding-bottom:56.25%;height:0;overflow:hidden;margin:24px 0 8px\"><iframe class=\"skip-lazy\" data-no-lazy=\"1\" loading=\"eager\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/Cg8O0PsZfd0\" style=\"position:absolute;top:0;left:0;width:100%;height:100%;border:0;border-radius:8px\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/div><p style=\"font-size:13px;color:#777;text-align:center;font-style:italic;margin:0 0 24px\">Period footage: G\u00f6k\u00e7en herself recounts her memories of Atat\u00fcrk.<\/p>\n<p style=\"font-style:italic\">Sources: Wikipedia, Guinness World Records, Runway Girl Network, Turkish Air Force archived biography, Milliyet (1956), BBC News<\/p><!-- mf-faq -->\n\n<div class=\"mf-faq-block\"><style>.mf-faq-block{margin:34px 0}.mf-faq-item:not([open]) .mf-faq-answer{display:none !important}.mf-faq-block h2.mf-faq-h{padding-top:22px;margin-bottom:14px}.mf-faq-item{border:1px solid #e2e8f5;border-radius:8px;margin:0 0 10px;background:#fff}.mf-faq-item summary{list-style:none;cursor:pointer;padding:15px 50px 15px 18px;font-weight:600;color:#1a1a1a;position:relative;line-height:1.45;user-select:none}.mf-faq-item summary::-webkit-details-marker{display:none}.mf-faq-item summary::after{content:\"+\";position:absolute;right:18px;top:50%;transform:translateY(-50%);font-size:1.5em;font-weight:400;color:#5C91FF;line-height:1}.mf-faq-item[open] summary::after{content:\"\\2013\"}.mf-faq-item[open] summary{border-bottom:1px solid #eef1f8}.mf-faq-item summary:hover{background:#f5f8ff}.mf-faq-answer{padding:14px 18px;color:#333;line-height:1.6}.mf-faq-answer p{margin:0}.mf-faq-answer a{color:#5C91FF}<\/style><h2 class=\"mf-faq-h\">Related Questions<\/h2><details class=\"mf-faq-item\"><summary>Who was Sabiha G\u00f6k\u00e7en?<\/summary><div class=\"mf-faq-answer\"><p>Sabiha G\u00f6k\u00e7en (1913\u20132001) was a Turkish aviator regarded as the world's first female combat pilot. Orphaned as a child, she was adopted by Mustafa Kemal Atat\u00fcrk, the founder of modern Turkey. She trained as a military pilot in the 1930s and became chief trainer at the T\u00fcrkku\u015fu flight school, logging roughly 8,000 flight hours.<\/p><\/div><\/details><details class=\"mf-faq-item\"><summary>Why is Sabiha G\u00f6k\u00e7en called the first female combat pilot?<\/summary><div class=\"mf-faq-answer\"><p>G\u00f6k\u00e7en flew bombing missions during the 1937 Dersim operations in eastern Turkey, and Guinness World Records recognises her as the world's first female combat pilot. She had trained on military aircraft at Eski\u015fehir in 1936\u201337 through a special programme, since Turkey's war academies did not otherwise admit women at the time.<\/p><\/div><\/details><details class=\"mf-faq-item\"><summary>How was Sabiha G\u00f6k\u00e7en connected to Atat\u00fcrk?<\/summary><div class=\"mf-faq-answer\"><p>Mustafa Kemal Atat\u00fcrk met the young orphan in Bursa in 1925, when she was about twelve, and adopted her. The surname \"G\u00f6k\u00e7en\" evokes the sky, and he encouraged her aviation career. She became one of the most visible symbols of the opportunities Atat\u00fcrk's reforms opened to Turkish women.<\/p><\/div><\/details><details class=\"mf-faq-item\"><summary>What is Sabiha G\u00f6k\u00e7en International Airport named after?<\/summary><div class=\"mf-faq-answer\"><p>Istanbul's Sabiha G\u00f6k\u00e7en International Airport, on the city's Asian side, is named in honour of the pioneering aviator. It opened in January 2001, the same year she died, and is today one of Istanbul's two major airports, keeping her name familiar to millions of travellers.<\/p><\/div><\/details><details class=\"mf-faq-item\"><summary>When was Sabiha G\u00f6k\u00e7en born and when did she die?<\/summary><div class=\"mf-faq-answer\"><p>She was born on 22 March 1913 in Bursa, in the final years of the Ottoman Empire, and died on 22 March 2001 in Ankara \u2014 on her 88th birthday. She had enrolled as the T\u00fcrkku\u015fu flight school's first female trainee when it opened on 5 May 1935.<\/p><\/div><\/details><details class=\"mf-faq-item\"><summary>Who were other pioneering women in aviation?<\/summary><div class=\"mf-faq-answer\"><p>Many women broke barriers in flight. American <a href=\"https:\/\/migflug.com\/jetflights\/jacqueline-cochran-she-founded-the-wasps-then-broke-the-sound-barrier\/\">Jacqueline Cochran<\/a> founded the WASPs and later broke the sound barrier, while <a href=\"https:\/\/migflug.com\/jetflights\/florence-pancho-barnes-the-first-female-stunt-pilot-who-outflew-everyone\/\">Florence \"Pancho\" Barnes<\/a> became a celebrated early stunt pilot. Sabiha G\u00f6k\u00e7en stands among these trailblazers as the first woman recognised as a combat pilot.<\/p><\/div><\/details><\/div>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@type\":\"FAQPage\",\"mainEntity\":[{\"@type\":\"Question\",\"name\":\"Who was Sabiha G\u00f6k\u00e7en?\",\"acceptedAnswer\":{\"@type\":\"Answer\",\"text\":\"Sabiha G\u00f6k\u00e7en (1913\u20132001) was a Turkish aviator regarded as the world's first female combat pilot. Orphaned as a child, she was adopted by Mustafa Kemal Atat\u00fcrk, the founder of modern Turkey. 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She had enrolled as the T\u00fcrkku\u015fu flight school's first female trainee when it opened on 5 May 1935.\"}},{\"@type\":\"Question\",\"name\":\"Who were other pioneering women in aviation?\",\"acceptedAnswer\":{\"@type\":\"Answer\",\"text\":\"Many women broke barriers in flight. American <a href=\\\"https:\/\/migflug.com\/jetflights\/jacqueline-cochran-she-founded-the-wasps-then-broke-the-sound-barrier\/\\\">Jacqueline Cochran<\/a> founded the WASPs and later broke the sound barrier, while <a href=\\\"https:\/\/migflug.com\/jetflights\/florence-pancho-barnes-the-first-female-stunt-pilot-who-outflew-everyone\/\\\">Florence \\\"Pancho\\\" Barnes<\/a> became a celebrated early stunt pilot. Sabiha G\u00f6k\u00e7en stands among these trailblazers as the first woman recognised as a combat pilot.\"}}]}<\/script><!-- \/mf-faq -->\n\n\n<div style=\"background:#f0f4ff;border-left:4px solid #5C91FF;padding:16px 20px;margin:32px 0 8px;border-radius:0 8px 8px 0\"><p style=\"margin:0 0 8px;font-weight:600;color:#333\">Related Posts<\/p><p style=\"margin:4px 0\"><a href=\"https:\/\/migflug.com\/jetflights\/trump-lift-caatsa-sanctions-turkey-f35-decision-2026\/\">Trump Dangles the F-35 in Ankara<\/a><\/p><p style=\"margin:4px 0\"><a href=\"https:\/\/migflug.com\/jetflights\/marcel-dassault-bloch-buchenwald-mirage\/\">The Man Behind the Name on the Rafale<\/a><\/p><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Orphaned in Bursa, adopted by Atat\u00fcrk, first into a fighter cockpit: the life of Sabiha G\u00f6k\u00e7en and the dark chapters Turkey still argues about.<\/p>","protected":false},"author":24,"featured_media":4530473,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"editor_notices":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[666,664],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4531146","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-history-and-legends","category-military-aviation"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v28.0 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>Sabiha Gokcen: The World First Female Fighter Pilot<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Orphaned in Bursa, adopted by Ataturk, first into a fighter cockpit: the life of Sabiha Gokcen and the dark chapters Turkey still argues about.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" 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