The US Navy has welcomed its first Black female Tactical Aircraft pilot named Madeline Swegle. According to Stars and Stripes, Swegle is from Burke, Virginia, and graduated from the U.S. Naval Academy in 2017.
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Swegle’s milestone comes more than 45 years after Rosemary Mariner in 1974 became the first woman to fly a tactical fighter jet in the Navy.
In 1974, Rosemary Mariner became the first woman in the Navy to fly a tactical jet and in the 1980s, Brenda Robinson was the first African American woman to earn her wings of gold and become a Navy flight instructor, evaluator and VIP transport pilot, according to the non-profit organization Women in Aviation International.
The Navy has been criticized for the lack of diversity in its aviation programs. A 2018 investigation from Military.com found that Black pilots were rare in the service, especially in fighter units.
Just 1.9% of all pilots assigned to the F/A-18 Hornet, EA-18 Growler, E-2 Hawkeye and C-2 Greyhound were Black. Out of 1,404 Hornet pilots, just 33 were female and 26 were Black.
On June 30, the Navy announced it created a special task force called “Task Force One Navy” to address the issues of “racism, sexism and other destructive biases and their impact on naval readiness.”
