At 23, Imoleayo Adebule
is one of Nigeria’s youngest female pilots. Intelligent, daring, and
confident are three words that best describe the tenacity with which she
passed through one of the most complex schools in the world – Flying
School, to obtain her license as a Commercial Pilot. Imoleayo has
excelled in a profession that is not only averse to people of her
gender, but quite difficult even to people of the opposite sex. Having
graduated at the top of her class at the Nigerian College of Aviation
Technology, Kaduna, she now works with Aero Contractors where she is
making giant strides. She shares her inspiring story with Adeola Adeyemo in this exclusive interview.
Starting Off
Imoleayo has always been a brilliant girl. Born on 25th
September, 1988 in Kaduna, she sailed through Primary and Secondary
Schools faster than most of her peers. At 15, she was already through
with her Secondary education at Royal College, Kaduna. Then came her
search for an admission into the University where she wanted to study
Mechanical Engineering. This was a very frustrating period for her as it
lasted three years. “I finished in 2003 and I couldn’t get admission
into the University,” she recalled. “I wanted to go to Ahmadu Bello
University, Zaria, but between 2003 and 2006, I didn’t get admission.”
It was during her search for admission
that she heard about an Engineering course being offered at the Nigerian
College of Aviation Technology, Kaduna. “A family friend that works in
Nigerian College of Aviation Technology, Kaduna, came over and told me
about an Engineering course going on in the school, so I decided to
apply for it. The name of the course is Air Frame and Power Plant,” she
said.
To Imoleayo, becoming a pilot was
“fate”. When she got to the College, she was disappointed to find out
that they were no longer admitting students for the course. She was
faced with the option of waiting for one more year or applying for the
other available course which was Standard Piloting. Reluctantly, and
with urging from her Mum and some Instructors at the College, she
applied for the course.
Crossing the Hurdles
Getting admitted for the course was no
mean feat, she recalls. “140 people did the interview that year. Only
nine made it to the class and one person joined later on, so we were
just 10 in the class. A lot of people might go in for it but it is not
meant for everybody. There is a particular level a pilot’s IQ has to be
at. If you can’t meet that level, then you can’t become a pilot. It was a
two weeks interview. The first week, they gave us brief lectures on how
everything works around the plane. The next week, we went in for the
test. We used a Simulator in the school, which is the model of an
aircraft, but on ground. You really won’t fly but basically what you see
in an airplane is in it. And the view and everything is just the same.
We had a class of about an hour and they just told us all that is in it
to give us an introduction. I have a younger brother and we love to play
video games together. When I went in, I just thought it was a video
game. They ended up dropping a lot of people. If you want to crash, you
hear a warning sound. A lot of people crashed that day. Then we did a
complex coordination test. They wanted to know how we could handle
multiple tasks at once. I did my best and at the end, my instructors
were surprised. They were asking me if I’ve ever flown before. One of
them said, “oh, you did everything like you’ve flown before. Then I
asked myself what did I do that was so special?”
After crossing the hurdle of getting
admitted for the course, Imoleayo was faced with another challenge,
raising money to pay for the course. At that time, it cost a whooping
N7,250,000 to attend the Flying School and till date, she is still awed
at the way God provided the funds for her. “I was lucky and it was just
fate for me to become a pilot,” she said. “During that time, my mum was
going through a very challenging time in her business. I finally got an
admission but I couldn’t raise the money to get myself into school. We
did the interview in November and were to begin school in April, so I
had about five months to raise the money. I wrote hundreds of letters to
various airlines, various companies. The letters were flying
everywhere, I was just writing to any place that comes to my mind. I
wrote to my state government (Ogun) and they told my dad that the money
was too much and the government couldn’t raise that money, that they
could use that money to train about 10 doctors instead of training one
pilot. I was so sad. Then I tried with Kaduna state government because I
was born and brought up there. A woman there, then the personal
assistant to the state governor’s wife told me that if I had claimed
Kaduna state right from birth, she would have been able to get it for me
in one day. Luckily for me, one of my instructors at the College gave
me the names of three airlines that I should write to- Pan African
Airlines, Aero Contractors and Bristow Helicopters. I wrote to the three
of them and fortunately, it was Aero that called back. I went in for an
oral interview. They sponsored three girls in the class. Amazingly, we
got our fees paid the day our admission was to be nullified if we didn’t
get our fees paid. If we didn’t get our fees paid on the 24th of April, we wouldn’t have been able to get in to the class but amazingly, the fees were paid on the 24th of April.”
Soaring With Wings
Eventually, Aero Contractors’ investment
in her paid off as she was the best graduating student in her class.
She was the second person to fly solo in her class, which means, flying
the plane without an instructor. “When the instructor thinks you are fit
enough to fly an airplane on your own, he would release you to take the
airplane up and bring it back. In this case, an instructor needs to
have enough confidence in you because you are actually flying on his
license. If anything happens, he will be held responsible not you. I
flew 10km away from the airfield and came back safely.”
This was a far cry from her first flying
experience with an instructor in 2008 in which she felt so nervous, she
said she would never fly again. “I felt so nervous during my first time
in an airplane, and a small one for that matter. We were up in the
clouds and it was a little bumpy bumpy. I was thinking in my mind, Lord
just put me down and I won’t come back again. The instructor gave me the
controls, and said hold it this way, you remember what you did in the
interview, and I held it. Then he said, do you want to turn left, and I
turned left. Later on he said I should leave the control that the
airplane would keep flying. I looked at him thinking he must be crazy, I
was not going to leave the controls and my grip tightened on it. Then
he said Ayo, leave the controls. I was reluctant, but I gave the
controls back to him. Then he said, Ayo I am going to release it and we
are not going to fall from the sky. Immediately he left it, I jumped at
it, and he was laughing at me. But I left it and he said now you see, we
will not fall from the sky, the airplane is built to fly, it will not
fall like a stone.”
Since then, Imoleayo has flown hundreds
of times to various parts of the country and beyond its shores. She
holds a Commercial Pilot’s License and was recently promoted to the rank
of First Officer. She has been well exposed as she goes to different
parts of the world every six months for training and occasionally, when
she wants to learn the grips of a new aircraft. For her, the job of a
Pilot is very lucrative, “I don’t earn an armed robber’s salary,” she is
quick to add. “But I don’t think I could ask for more. I basically have
everything I could ask for and I am very grateful to God. Even though I
wanted to become an Engineer, I don’t think I would have been happier
than I am right now. With God, nothing is impossible.”
Imoleayo Adebule (middle)
Imoleayo Adebule (first from bottom left)
Facing Challenges and Excelling
On her time spent at Flying School,
Imoleayo says it was “interesting and challenging at the same time”.
Even though the basic academic requirement to gain admission into the
Flying School is similar to most Higher Institutions – 5 credits in
Science subjects at O’levels, Imoleayo says that the level of
competition there is more than the norm. “It was so competitive. 75% is
the pass mark to a course; else you have to take it again. But that 75%
was just like scratching the surface. Everyone was aiming for 90%.”
While comparing this to what she might
have gotten if she attended another institution, probably a University,
she says this level of competition might have affected her social life
in a way. “To some extent, I miss that life. If I’m seated with my
friends, the way they socialize is quite different from the way I
socialize. Sometimes I feel like I’m in a different world. But I try so
hard to mix up with people of different professions.”
However, she has no regrets. For someone
who learnt how to fly a plane before learning how to drive a car,
Imoleayo is “100% sure that it is still the safest way to travel.” She
loves flying and can’t think of anything else she would rather do than
flying. A key ingredient to succeed, she says, is doing what you are
good at. “Know your strengths. I am poor with writing, I wouldn’t deal
with English but I love Mathematics.” Secondly, aiming for the best.
“Anything I find myself doing, I put in my best. It is a man’s world but
we are women and we are doing it. It’s not like it is impossible. If
you have the determination, there is nothing you can’t do.”
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