- Mustafa Mohamed Moalim
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Mustafa Mohamed Moalim
مصطفى محمد معلمBorn March 25, 1943
Mogadishu, SomaliaDied Expression error: Unrecognised punctuation character "{",
Fargo, North Dakota, United StatesOccupation pilot, flight instructor, politician Religion Islam Spouse Khadija Abdulkhadir Mohamed Mustafa Mohamed Moalim (Somali: Mustafa Maxamed Macalin, Arabic: مصطفى محمد معلم) (b. 25 March 1943 – 27 December 2009) was prominent Somali pilot.
Contents
Biography
At the age of 17 in post-independence Somalia, Mustafa volunteered as a fighter pilot, swearing to defend the young Somali nation from foreign threats. He remained with the Somali Air Force from 1960 to 1978, and eventually became a Senior Commercial Pilot with Somali Airlines from 1979 to 1991.
Early life
Mustafa Moalim was born in Mogadishu, Somalia to a veterinary father and a housewife mother. He had one older brother Dr. Abdulkadir Mohamed Moalim a well know veterinarian. Because of his father’s constant move to different regions he and his brother grew up in different cities in Somalia such as Mogadishu, Baidoa, Afgooye and Beledweyne. According to his Cousin and colleagues Mustafa used to draw planes during his childhood becoming interested in flying and wanting to be a pilot. After earning high marks in his elementary school in Baidoa, at the age of 11, he was chosen to attend Italian schools including the Liceo Dinesa in Mogadishu. In 1959, Mustafa graduated at the top of his class from the Collegio Magistrale.[1]
Military career
At the age of 17 Mustafa volunteered and was chosen to become a fighter pilot. He trained first at Egypt with Egyptian Air Force, where he made his first solo flight in a military aircraft. Sometime in 1961 he attended the Soviet air force pilot training school in Moscow where he was trained on the Mikoyan-Gurevich MiG-15, Mikoyan-Gurevich MiG-17. As a young officer, Mustafa served as a fighter pilot and was later appointed as fighter air squadron commander and flight training officer. In 1966 he trained at the Scuola AVvanzato Base Elica in Latina, Italy, eventually becoming a licensed flight instructor for military transport aircraft such as the C-45 Expeditor and C-47 Skytrain or Dakota (Douglas DC-3). In 1969 he was trained as pilot and flight instructor for a jet bomber Ilyushin Il-28 while he attended and graduated from the combined arms academy Frunze Military Academy, in Moscow. Upon returning to Somalia in 1973-74, he was promoted commander of the Balidoogle Air Force base, where he built Somalia's first Air Force School and became the first Chief of the Somali Air Force School. In 1975, he earned a Master of Military Arts and Science diploma from the Cosmonaut Academy in Kiev, Ukraine in the former USSR.
During the Somali-Ethiopian conflict in 1977-78, his military career reached its zenith when he became Chief of Somali Air Force Operations and Commander of Air force for Northwestern Somali Regions, Air force bases in Hargeisa and Berbera and was credited to have led the establishment of Somali’s air superiority during the war. In Somali-Ethiopian conflict Mustafa is also credited to have shot down two enemy aircraft over Ogadenia territory and carrying out numerous strategic long distance bombing. In November 1978 Mustafa became the Air Force Academy's commander and a year later with request from the office of the presidency he was transferred and employed by Somali Airlines where he taught different courses and supervised many Pilots.
Commercial pilot
In 1979 Mustafa Mohamed Moalim was employed at Somali Airlines where he oversaw the growth of the Somali Airlines into an international Airlines. He help bring first commercial jet planes Boeing 707 to Somali Airlines serving as Captain pilot and flight instructor after studying at American Air Academy in Dallas, Texas. In 1987, he become licenced flight instructor in Airbus A310 after studying at Airbus training center in Toulouse, France. In Total, he had 33 years and more than 27000 hours of flying experience. He served as an Instructor Airline Pilots and national Technical member. He gained thousands of hours of flight experience to destinations across Africa, Middle East, Asia and Europe.
Academic life
In addition to his different Diplomas and MMAS degree in Master of Military Arts and Science from KIEV- UKRAINE, the Soviet Union Air Force Academies. Mustafa holds Laureate of Jurisprudence from the Somali National University Faculty of Law and a Diploma of Linguistics from Italian Linguistics Academy a “ Polyglot” for which he was specialized in Arabic, English, French, German, Italian and Russian.
Personal life
Mustafa Mohamed Moalim is married to Khadija Abdulkhadir Mohamed, a former Italian and Economics instructor and expert in Pedagogy, with whom he has six sons and two daughters (Kamaludin, Zahra, Nuradin, Shamsudin, Rahma, Mohamed, Sakhawadin and Fakhrudin). He also has 28 grandchildren.
Mustafa has always refused in participating in any form of the current Somali civil war by maintaining a neutral ground and staying away clan politics. He loved his country and people and spent his last moments in exile in Moorhead, Minnesota with his wife, children, grandchildren and other extended family members. Mustafa died on December 27, 2009 and was buried in Fargo Islamic Cemetery in Fargo, North Dakota.
See also
- Somali Air Force
Notes
- ^ His cousin Dr. Abdulahi Ali Suber
References
External links
Categories:- Ethnic Somali people
- Living people
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