Last week, Nigeria’s aviation sector and Nigeria mourned the demise of Tolulope Arotile, Nigeria’s first female combat helicopter pilot.
Born in 1995, she was 24 years old at the time of her death. The late Arotile was decorated on 15 October 2019 as the first female combat helicopter pilot in Nigerian Air Force.
Arotile was not just a pilot but a specialised one, a combat helicopter, a profession rarely studied in pilot school.
More thrilling is that Tolulope Arotile chose this field of study knowing the risks and dangers associated with being a combat helicopter pilot.
A combat helicopter pilot also called Attack helicopter pilot is a pilot that uses armed helicopters with the primary role of an attack aircraft, with the capability of engaging targets on the ground, such as enemy infantry and armored fighting vehicles. Due to their heavy armament they are sometimes called helicopter gunships.
Weapons used on attack helicopters can include autocannons, machine guns, rockets, and guided anti-tank missiles such as the Hellfire. Many attack helicopters are also capable of carrying air-to-air missiles, though mostly for purposes of self-defense.
Today’s attack helicopter has two main roles: first, to provide direct and accurate close air support for ground troops, and second, the anti-tank role to destroy enemy armour concentrations.
Attack helicopters are also used to supplement lighter helicopters in the armed scout role. In combat, an attack helicopter is projected to destroy around 17 times its own production cost before it is destroyed.
Arotile, who hails from Iffe in Ijumu Local Government Area of Kogi State died as a result of head injuries sustained from a road traffic accident at Nigerian Air Force (NAF) Base Kaduna.
Her death came barely a year after she was winged as a combat helicopter pilot in the Air Force following the completion of her course in South Africa.
All that Tolulope Oluwatoyin Sarah Arotile dreamt of was to join the military and fly an aircraft.
“One day — when she was very small — she pointed to one small aircraft parked on a field and said, ‘Dad, one day I am going to fly that aircraft,’ and I said amen,” her father, Akintunde Arotile, recalled in an interview with a national daily.
An official release by the Nigerian Air Force says as of October 2019, Tolulope had acquired 460 hours (about 19 days) of flight within 14 months in flying a helicopter.
Those hours of flying were partly spent as a squadron pilot in Operation Gama Aiki in Minna, Niger State, and across the North-central, where she flew her quota of the anti-banditry bombardments to rid the area of terror.
The native of Iffe area of Ijumu LGA of Kogi State and fourth child of her family attended the Air Force Primary (2000—2005) and Secondary Schools (2006—2011), Kaduna.
In September 2012, she was admitted into the Nigerian Defence Academy, Kaduna, as a member of the 64 regular course, where she finished from in 2017, bagged a degree in mathematics, and was commissioned as a pilot officer.
NAF Director of Public Relations and Information, Air Commodore Ibikunle Daramola, said until her death, Flying Officer Arotile, who was commissioned into the NAF in September 2017 as a member of Nigerian Defence Academy Regular Course 64, was the first ever female combat helicopter pilot in the service.
