How Silva McLeod became Tonga's first female pilot after her husband's hospital bed suggestion

Maddison Leach

 Apr 13 2023


Silva McLeod, Tonga's first female pilot.

Growing up in a small village in Tonga, Silva McLeod often stared up at the clouds as planes passed overhead but never dared to dream she would end up flying one.

Born on the island of Vava'u, McLeod's future was pretty much set in stone; she believed she'd grow up, marry and churn out babies like the rest of the women on the island.

"When you're an island kid, flying is a fantasy. I would be the laughing stock of the village if I ever mentioned that I wanted to fly," she told 9Honey.

"But when aeroplanes flew over our village, I always raced outside to chase and I would stand there and watch until it disappeared into the horizon."

Being a pilot wasn't an option for a Tongan girl like her – or so McLeod thought until she fell in love unexpectedly with an Australian who was helping build a hospital on the island. Ken was an electrician and despite their different backgrounds, he and McLeod were drawn to one another and began courting, though McLeod's family disapproved at first .

Falling in love with a white man wasn't part of her plan, but she was smitten and when she confessed her fantasy about one day flying an aeroplane, Ken was supportive.

"He said, 'Well, that can be done. There's nothing stopping you'," she recalls.

Silva and her husband Ken in Australia with one of their daughters.

Maybe it was his belief in her that inspired McLeod to take a leap of faith and marry Ken in 1980, then leave her island life behind and relocate to Melbourne to start a family. They welcomed two daughters and for years, she focused on raising her girls, paying the mortgage, getting her kids through school and putting food on the table. She worked as a supermarket "checkout chick" and got on with life; her dreams of flying weren't a priority.

"To even fantasise of doing something like that, it's almost irresponsible as a mum," she says. Silva didn't think about it again until tragedy struck.

In 1990, Ken was diagnosed with a rare cancer of the plasma in bone marrow. Doctors said his life expectancy was about five years, but Ken was determined to fight it. As he went into hospital for a long stint of treatment, McLeod kissed him goodbye and he asked, "Do you still want to fly?"

"There was a little butterfly in my belly when he said that, but I quickly squashed it," Silva says.

"I really thought that he was delusional with all the drugs, the chemo."

But Ken was serious, and after making it through six months of treatment with her support, he surprised her with a voucher for an introductory flight on her birthday. McLeod loved every second of it and by the time she touched down she was totally hooked.

"I came out with textbooks, headset, everything. Ken looked at me and he said, 'What have I done? I've created a monster'," she laughs, but her husband was so supportive. McLeod knew becoming a pilot wouldn't be easy; she was a woman entering a male-dominated field, as well as being a mother and a woman of colour.

For years, she endured sexism, rude comments and discrimination to make her dream a reality while juggling motherhood, her day job, home life and training.

"When you want something so bad, you never see the challenges until afterwards. Looking back at it, I don't know how I did it," she admits.

It took six years and tens of thousands of dollars, but McLeod eventually earned her Air Transport Pilot Licence and became the first Tongan woman ever to qualify as a pilot. Then, in 1998 she got the call she'd been waiting for.

Silva McLeod has written a memoir about her experience, called Island Girl to Airline Pilot.

"This is Royal Tongan Airlines… we've got a position here for you," she heard down the line.

Sitting on the flight deck of a Royal Tongan Airlines aircraft not long after, McLeod made the captain's announcement in her native Tongan tongue in a moment she'll never forget.

"It was a hard long search for that job," she says, but there was a cost. The job would require her to spend long stretches of time away from her husband and children back in Melbourne.

"I was already a mum, employers didn't look favourably on my situation because the kids will always come first… which is so unfair because if I was a man, no one would bat an eye if I left my family behind, because you expect the man to be the breadwinner."

Fortunately, Ken supported her dreams and stayed home with their girls while McLeod went from one achievement to another, later flying for the Royal Flying Doctor Service and as first officer on international flights for Virgin. The "island girl" made her dreams come true and spent 30 years flying, but Ken's health began to deteriorate after his cancer returned.

He died peacefully at home on June 18, 2020, the same year McLeod lost her job flying due to the Covid-19 pandemic. She channelled her grief into writing.

"When I first put pen to paper, it was after Ken's funeral service and it was my go-to to let my grief out to pay tribute to him," she says. "I wanted the whole world to know that he was the 'Wind Beneath My Wings'. He was happy to walk behind me and let me shine and be the hero in front."

Before he passed, Ken encouraged his wife to one day share her story in the form of a memoir and after his death she spent 12 months writing for up to 12 hours a day. It took another 12 months to edit her story, pull it together and pitch it to publishers, and eventually Island Girl To Airline Pilot was picked up by Exsile Publishing.

The memoir helped her process her grief and she knows Ken "would be very, very proud and happy" she finally put their story to paper, as are their daughters.

Though she hasn't returned to flying since the pandemic, it fills McLeod with "gratitude" to know her book could inspire other young women to take to the skies like she did.

"If my story lands on a young girl out there, or a boy, or an Indigenous kid or someone from that kind of background, if sharing my little story could inspire them, I couldn't be happier," she says.

"Without Ken, I wouldn't have a story to tell. It was a huge help to me to grieve over my laptop and relieve our journey together," she says.

-9Honey Travel