The activity was carried out by personnel from 8 allied countries. Among them were also a female pilot and an air defence controller from the Italian Air Force.
An aircraft Boeing 707 E-3A AWACS belonging to NATO Airborne Early Warning and Control Force, which took off from the NATO Air Base at Geilenkirchen, in Germany, carried out an airspace surveillance and control operation to the first time with an all-female aircraft crew, comprising pilots, controllers and flight engineers. Among these were also an Officer and a Non-Commissioned Officer of the Italian Air Force: a female pilot, Aircraft Commander, and an air defence controller as a surveillance operator, both serving at the NATO AEW in Geilenkirchen.
The flight, carried out as part of NATO's enhanced Vigilance Activities and promoted by the NAEW&CF Women’s Initiative Team (WIT), aims to promote the participation of women in fields that were once exclusively the domain of men and to highlight the important milestones achieved within the Atlantic Alliance in the field of gender equality.
Equipped with long-range radar and passive sensors, the NATO AWACS aircraft can detect air and surface tracks hundreds of kilometres away and provide this information to the Alliance. This makes the E-3A an aircraft capable of delivering a key capability for NATO and allied nations, not only in the field of early warning, but also in the sector of command and control and operations management.
