This 30-year-old pilot says she is the youngest woman in the world to captain a Boeing 777

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July 26, 2017 1:24 PM

She completed her pilot training aged 19 years old and earned a job at Air India in 2006.

Indian pilot Anny Divya claims to have become the youngest woman in the world to captain a Boeing 777.

The 30-year-old's achievement has been widely reported in India, where she flies for commercial airline Air India.

"From a child, I always wanted to be a pilot, although I didn’t have much guidance on how to become a pilot," she told Indian news show Mirror Now.

"My parents have always been very supportive even though there were people telling them not to send me to flying lessons and the fees were a lot for them to pay at that time, but they managed."

She revealed in the interview that before taking command of the 777, she had the opportunity to captain a 737, but decided to wait a while to achieve her dream of commanding the bigger jet.

A Boeing 777 is a long-range, wide-body, twin-engine jet airliner developed by Boeing Commercial Airplanes, while the 737 is a short- to medium-range twinjet narrow-body airline.

Divya completed her pilot training at Indira Gandhi Rashtriya Uran Akademi, aged just 19 years old. She soon earned a job at Air India in 2006, according to Business Standard. She regularly flies to New York, Chicago, and San Francisco.

In response to queries from hopeful young female pilots, she posted advice on how to become a commercial pilot on her Facebook page on Tuesday.

Divya has also joined Instagram, where she is posting images under the username @anny_divya. She shared the first post of herself in uniform at the weekend. Other selfies have followed.

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