Niloofar Rahmani was born on 27 September, 1992 in Afghanistan to a Tajik family but lived the first years of her life in Pakistan. In 2001, she and her family returned to Kabul. From an early age she dreamt of becoming a pilot and spent years studying English so she could attend flight school. In 2010, she enlisted in the Afghan Air Force Officer Training Program and graduated as a Second Lieutenant in 2012, becoming the first female fixed wing Air Force aviator in Afghanistan’s history. She was the only female candidate in the program at the time and upon graduation became the first female pilot in the Afghan military since the fall of the Taliban in 2001. She attended an advanced flight school, which would allow her to fly larger military cargo aircrafts but as a woman, was still banned from transporting dead or wounded soldiers. She defied this rule when she transported injured soldiers but after reporting it to her superiors, received no sanctions. After her accomplishments were published, both she and her family received threats from other family members and the Taliban, forcing the family to move several times over the years. Despite these threats, Niloofar continued to progress in her career, training with the US Air Force in 2015 and completing the program in 2016. Following her completion of the program, she applied for asylum. In 2018 she was granted asylum and moved to the United States. Currently she works as a translator for Persian, Dari, and English and is based Florida.