"When I was young, my father told me, complete whatever you start out with,” said 55-year-old Nivedita Bhasin, who is India’s third woman pilot and the youngest woman to command a jet plane in the world.

Watch:

Meet Nivedita Bhasin: The youngest woman pilot to fly Dreamliner

With a dream to achieve, what perhaps no one had ever imagined in 1970s, Bhasin is known for breaking stereotypes and foraying into the male dominated world of pilots.

Bhasin’s flying ambitions took off when she was in school.

Her school was behind the flying school and she used to constantly watch small trainer planes flying in and out of the airport.

Bhasin’s passion for flying was so deep rooted that she didn’t bother completing her education. A fact that she regrets sometime in retrospect.

“My biggest regret is that I never went to college,” shares Bhasin.

At 17, she joined the flying school and at 20 she achieved her biggest dream – becoming an airline pilot!

“A woman – as a pilot was unheard of at that time and there were several doubts cast on capability. It was a very lonely life up there. But things have changed,” said Bhasin, who also belongs to a family of pilots.

Her father-in-law, husband and children are all pilots and her family has clocked over 100 years of flying between them.

“My children have literally grown up in a cockpit and there was nothing else that they could think of doing,” said Bhasin, who has three years before she retires.

But before that, she wants to co-pilot a plane at least once with her family!

First Published:Sept 7, 2018 5:07 PM IST