SEPANG – “I am very proud and overwhelmed,” said Nur Waie Hidayah Mohamad Rasidin, the only female pilot responsible for navigating Flight MH319 carrying the first batch of the Sinovac Covid-19 vaccine from China to Malaysia today.
Nur Waie Hidayah, 23, one of five pilots in charge of the flight, said she is proud to be able to break male dominance in the aviation industry.
“There is no difference in being a male or female (pilot). We are all given the same training and went through the same procedure,” she said after landing the plane at the Kuala Lumpur International Airport (KLIA) here.
The envirotainer – a temperature-controlled container – carrying 200l of the vaccine arrived at 9am at KLIA from Beijing in a Malaysia Airlines Airbus 330-300 aircraft, bearing the livery of the Jalur Gemilang.
Nur Waie Hidayah, who joined Malaysia Airlines in 2017, said the passenger-to-cargo flight left Beijing Capital International Airport at 2.30am.
She said the team has been making preparations for the past five months, including learning about the envirotainer, which is able to maintain a temperature of between 2°C and 8°C.
The other four pilots are Datuk Captain Tengku Ahmad Farizanudean Al-Haj, Captain Mohamed Razif Abdul Aziz, Captain Khairul Syukri Khali and Chin Vun Ben.
Razif, 53, said the team was given the responsibility to navigate the two-way flight due to safety factors.
He said the flight left Kuala Lumpur at 7pm yesterday and arrived in Beijing at 1am.
“The vaccine was loaded straight away, and we flew back from Beijing at 2.30am.”
The Selangor native said the loading took quite some time as the temperature in Beijing was below 0°C yesterday.
Despite having 31 years of experience in the world of aviation, he admitted that he was worried because he did not want anything untoward to happen.
The Sinovac shot is the second Covid-19 vaccine to arrive in Malaysia after the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine. – Bernama, February 27, 2021
