Pilot charts course for SA's youth

Superheroes do exist. She can fly, has helped more than 50,000 people and she is a crime-fighter.

Fatima Jakoet is a senior first officer at SAA piloting an Airbus 320. She has an MBA, a degree in chemistry and worked at the SAPS forensic laboratory, where she specialised in toxicology.

In 2015, she launched the world's first Science Technology Robotics Engineering Aerospace and Mathematics laboratory and now works towards reviving the aerospace industry in South Africa.

Her Sakhikamva Foundation mentors thousands of learners in the fields of science, aerospace, coding and robotics and a bursary programme she started is allowing 13 people to train as pilots.

As if that is not enough, she is doing research at Harvard University on the transformation of airline pilots in South Africa.

Jakoet said she wanted to become a pilot after working as forensic scientist on a drug bust at Cape Town International Airport in 2001.

"It was inconceivable for me to become a pilot [as a Muslim woman straight after the terror attacks in New York]," she said.

"But one day I stood at the airport and I looked at an airplane and I knew my calling.

"I knew I had to be in control of this machine."

Now Jakoet wants to train the next generation of aerospace experts and believes South Africa could be in a position to lead the world in the field.

"This generation is the generation of space travel and we need to prepare them for it. Who are going to be the engineers and rocket launchers?

"The aim is to energise the aerospace industry in South Africa. We need to start leading instead of lagging."

Jakoet also recently joined Cape Aerospace Technologies as a director of business development. The company makes jet engines and turbines and does work for the military.

David Krige, CAT managing director , said the leadership Jakoet brought was invaluable.

"She is very capable and her passion is unmatched," he said.