Background
Marchal was born into a rich Roman Catholic family in Brussels in 1944.
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Dominique Marchal
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From her childhood on, she was something of a rebel, refusing to accept the family"s way of life and the Catholic dogma. Keen to discover the world, she decided to become an aircraft pilot. She moved to Switzerland where she obtained her licence to fly on instruments in 1966, only to discover that she was the first woman in the country to receive her certificate.
Always looking for adventure, she flew to Biafra in the late 1960s with arms for the rebels.
In parallel, she raised two boys. She became also increasingly bored with flying, especially when she started piloting Boeing 737 charters across the Atlantic.
As a result of increased automation, there was little contact with the passengers who became tantamount to freight. In the 1980s, she gave up her job as a pilot for a couple of months in order to climb Mount Everest, joining Jean Troillet"s expedition.
She did not get to the top but was able to reach a height of 5,150 m (16,900 ft).
In 1986, she finally gave up her work as a pilot and became a journalist. Three years later, as one of her assignments, she met the Dalai Lama in Paris. In 1995, she moved to Kathmandu where she now runs a clinic.
