Olga Sanfirova

19 April] 1917 – 13 December 1944) was a captain and squadron commander in the 46th Taman Guards Night Bomber Aviation Regiment during World War II.

[1] During a training flight at Engels where she was flying as pilot-in-command, the plane struck high-voltage power lines, damaging the aircraft.

An Engels tribunal sentenced her to ten years imprisonment, but that ruling was later amended and she was asked to join the Night Bomber Regiment to atone for damaging the plane.

[5] During the war she participated in bombing campaigns against German forces in the North Caucasus, Crimea, Taman peninsula, Kerch-Eltigen and Byelorussia.

[6] On 1 May 1943, the Polikarpov Po-2 she and Rufina Gasheva were flying was shot down by a German fighter over Soviet lines in Crimea, but both of them managed to survive after evacuating the aircraft and were rescued two days later.

Commemorative plaque on the wall of 222 Oktyabrskaya Revolution Street in Kolomna in memory of Olga Sanfirova and other military aircraft pilots — Heroes of the Soviet Union associated with the Kolomna aeroclub