They were part of Afghanistan’s first-ever all-female flight. Then their lives were turned upside down.

It was all smiles on Flight 104 out of Kabul on a sunny February day in 2021.

The all-women crew was dressed in company uniform — dark, navy suits and saffron-colored headscarves.

The flight was operated by one of Afghanistan’s national carriers — Kam Air.

The women on that flight made history by taking part in the country’s first all-female commercial flight. It was short, about 90 minutes, and it went from the capital, Kabul, to the city of Herat in the west.

This was a big deal because it showed how far Afghan women had come since the Taliban ruled their country in the 1990s. Little did the crew know that a few months later, their lives would be turned upside down when the Taliban took over the country once again in August of 2021.

Now, as the fourth anniversary of that flight approaches, the women and others who witnessed the moment are reflecting on the experience and the setbacks to women’s rights in Afghanistan under Taliban rule.

“There were concerns about the safety of the women, the safety of me involved in this, the [flight], hijacking, all these kinds of things,” said aviation enthusiast and YouTuber Josh Cahill, who documented the whole journey. Cahill reviews airlines in different countries, and the project was part of a public relations campaign for Kam Air.

At the time, the Taliban were fighting a bloody battle with the Afghan army, and American forces were withdrawing after two decades of war in the country.

War aside, every woman operating that flight had fought hard against a patriarchal society that saw them as less than their male counterparts.

“We agreed on not having any announcements during the flight just because Afghans are very conservative — some of them, not all of them — but some being aware that, ‘Oh, there’s only women in charge on this flight,’ they wouldn’t feel comfortable,” Cahill explained.

Mohadese Mirzaee was the co-pilot. That day, she was working alongside Veronika Borisova, a Ukrainian pilot.

Mirzaee became interested in flying at an early age. She was good at math and science, and for her 16th birthday, her mom took her to one of the air bases in Afghanistan to chat with some of the pilots.

“They were like, ‘Oh nah, why do you want to become a pilot? You can join the tower [and] become an air traffic controller, which is also a very good job,’ but that was not what I wanted. And they were like, “No, you’re too small, you’re too young, you’re not fit to fly,”” she said.

It was hard not to feel disillusioned, Mirzaee recalled.

In 2015, Mirzaee traveled to Canada on a student exchange program. There, she signed up for flight lessons and learned the basics. When the exchange program ended, she returned to Afghanistan.

This time, she said, she tried to get into a training program at Kam Air.

“I called this company every single day, to the point that they were so sick of me and they were like, ‘OK, fine, yeah, just come to the office, bring your documents and we’ll talk to you,’” she recalled.

Mirzaee spent the next few years in intense training.

The US-led invasion of Afghanistan brought so much death and devastation, but it also created an opening for women like Mirzaee to pursue their dreams. Education was more widely available to Afghan women and girls, despite the security challenges.

Mirzaee had worked so hard to become a pilot that she didn’t even have time to think about her achievement, she said. Not until she took part in that all-female flight in 2021.

“I had the time to realize what I have actually done. I was waiting for that moment my whole life.”

The video of the flight was released on March 8, 2021, to coincide with International Women’s Day. It went viral, and Mirzaee said she was flooded with messages from Afghan girls who told her they wanted a future in aviation, too.

Now, they had a role model that Mirzaee didn’t have.

Nargis Mahmoodi was also on that flight. She said she felt extremely proud to be part of the team that made history. Mahmoodi grew up in a refugee camp in neighboring Pakistan. Her family was forced to leave Afghanistan because of the war.

Mahmoodi’s family supported her decision to become a flight attendant, she said, but other relatives criticized her for it.

“They said it was inappropriate for a young woman to be away from her family all the time and to be in close proximity with other, unrelated men,” she explained.

After the video came out, all of the women involved in that flight worried about their safety. The Taliban were against women receiving this type of spotlight. They frequently threatened and carried out attacks against Afghans who cooperated with foreigners and, in their words, “promoted un-Islamic behavior.”

Six months after their flight, the Taliban took control of Afghanistan, unleashing total chaos. Thousands of people rushed to Kabul Airport with the hope of leaving on one of the last remaining flights.

“Everything happened [at] such a fast pace, it was really hard to keep up,” said Cahill, the YouTuber.

Cahill had left Afghanistan but remained in touch with the women. He found out that Veronika Borisova, the captain of the all-female flight, was scheduled to fly out of Kabul the night that the capital fell to the Taliban.

The airport was a mess, he said. There was no air control tower or flight plan. But this was their only chance.

“They took off into uncontrolled airspace. So, she had to make sure [herself that] there was no traffic,” Cahill explained. “She was also concerned about surface-to-air missiles being fired by the Taliban.”

Mirzaee also managed to get on that plane.

“I was thinking about everything that we have done and how we lost it quickly. It’s just unbelievable [that] in a matter of months I was at the highest point of my life and then the lowest point of my life,” she said.

They eventually made it to Ukraine, and from there, Mirzaee moved to Bulgaria, where she now works as a cargo plane pilot. Borisova works for the same company.

Mahmoodi, the flight attendant, was left behind. After a failed rescue attempt and a month of hiding from the Taliban, she made it out to Pakistan and from there to Brazil, where she lives now.

Today, Mahmoodi works in customer service at a company in São Paulo. She said she has learned Portuguese and gotten more accustomed to the new culture.

One of the flight attendants, Arefa Ahmadi, claimed asylum in the US; another, Shagufa Haidary, lives in Germany. Cahill and the crew haven’t been able to reach the fifth member of the all-female flight, Freshta Darwish.

Meanwhile, every time Mirzaee hears the news about yet another restriction on women in Afghanistan, her heart breaks.

The Taliban have barred women from getting an education beyond the 6th grade or working in most professions.

“Right now, we’re not using half of our population, so obviously, our country is not going to reach anywhere,” Mirzaee said.

Mahmoodi in Brazil said that sometimes she dreams of flying again.

She wasn’t able to take her uniform when she fled Afghanistan, because she was afraid of getting into trouble with the Taliban at one of the checkpoints.

The only item she did manage to take with her was her saffron-colored headscarf, which she keeps in a safe place.