Career of NATO’s 1st Woman Combat Pilot in Doubt
THE HAGUE — The North Atlantic Treaty Organization’s first female combat pilot, Nelly Speerstra, has hit snags in training and could be asked to switch to transport planes or helicopters, the Defense Ministry said Monday.
Speerstra, 23, graduated last December from a NATO alliance base in the United States after a jet training course and then returned to her native Netherlands for a conversion course on Northrop NF-5 fighter bombers.
“Progress in the program is not what it should be, that’s the problem,†said a ministry spokesman who asked not to be identified. He declined to give details of the problems but said they had nothing to do with Speerstra being a woman.
An air force commission will decide within a week on the future of Speerstra and two male pilots, he added.
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