Background
Park was born in Daegu, Gyeongsang-do, of Korea.
Park was born in Daegu, Gyeongsang-do, of Korea.
Though it is generally agreed that Kwon was the first female pilot, Park is still recognised as the first Korean female civilian pilot, as Kwon was trained by the Republic of China Air Force. She was the subject of the controversial 2005 South Korean film Blue Swallow, in which she was portrayed by actress Jang Jin-young. Upon her arrival in Japan, she initially settled in Yokohama"s Minamiyoshida-machi, where she enrolled in the Kasahara Industrial Training School, spending two and a half years.
In February 1920, she returned to Daegu to enter a nursing school there.
Though her true aim was to become a pilot, she needed to earn money for the tuition fees first. In January 1925, Park returned to Japan, where she finally enrolled in an aviation school in Kamata (present-day Ōta, Tokyo).
She had initially hoped to attend the same flight school as An Chang-nam, the first Korean male pilot, but it had burned down in 1923. She graduated and took the test for her third-class pilot"s licence on 25 January 1927.
She obtained the licence three days later.
On 30 July of the following year, she obtained her second-class pilot"s licence. On 4 May 1933, Park was chosen to fly on a new route between Japan and Manchukuo. She flew to Seoul on 19 May to meet with government officials there.
At 10:35 Department of Administration and Management on of 7 August 1933, she took off in her Salmson 2A2 biplane, named the Blue Swallow, from Tokyo"s Haneda Airport on one such flight to Manchuria.
She crashed 42 minutes later near Hakone, Kanagawa and died.
