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The 44-year-old Vietnamese-American woman achieved her dream, but her life was cruelly cut short on July 30 when her plane crashed in Indiana, the U.S., minutes after takeoff.

She was flying her second solo journey around the world, the Indianapolis-based IndyStar newspaper reported.

Thu was born in 1981 in Tuy Hoa town. In 1993 she moved to the United States with her family. At 16 she told her father about her dream of becoming a pilot and was met with disapproval: He hoped she would attend medical school instead of joining the Air Force Academy. But she was determined to take to the skies, starting with her education.

Thu focused on math, believing it was her duty to succeed and make her parents proud. She graduated top of her class of 1,500 students and earned a full scholarship to study mathematics at Purdue University.

In college she earned six dollars an hour working as a tutor. She took out student loans, and at times slept in her car to afford her flight training. Her family was struggling financially and she had no sponsor.

“I had to tutor math for 20 hours just to afford one hour of flight lessons,” she told Read in 2019, after her first solo flight.

“To earn a pilot certificate, you need at least 60 hours of training.”

Despite working every spare moment, she graduated among the top 10 students in her class. She went on to get a master’s degree in aerospace engineering from Purdue, and later completed a PhD in the subject at the Georgia Institute of Technology.

“My chest swelled up with emotions, I felt like I had conquered the sky.” The solo trip earned her a private pilot’s license after years of training, often interrupted by limited funds.

Vietnamese-American pilot

In 2017 she was named Outstanding Flight Instructor by the Aircraft Owners and Pilots Association, a U.S. organization supporting general aviation pilots, after training hundreds of pilots. She also worked as a commercial pilot, flying Boeing 767s for a major airline and logging over 4,000 flight hours.

In 2018 she founded the nonprofit Asian Women in Aerospace and Aviation in the hope of inspiring the next generation. “As an Asian woman, I had to overcome hardships and always wanted to give back and inspire others,” she said.

In 2024 Thu became the 10th woman, and the first Vietnamese, to fly solo around the world in a single-engine aircraft. She flew to four continents and visited 25 countries and territories.

The flight in late July was her attempt to re-create her historic solo flight, news station Wsvn reported.

Before taking off from Indiana she posted a video from the cockpit, saying: “This is not just a flight. This is a mission to inspire the next generation of Asian female pilots and aerospace engineers.”

Following the accident AWAA released a statement honoring its founder as an inspirational pilot who “lived with boldness, curiosity, and drive.” It said it would carry on her dream by supporting young women in pursuing their passions and establishing a scholarship in her name.