Kara Spears Hultgreen (5 October 1965 – 25 October 1994), was a Lieutenant and Naval Aviator in the United States Navy and the first female carrier-based fighter pilot in the U.S. Navy. She died just months after she was certified for combat, when she crashed her F-14 Tomcat into the sea on final approach to USS Abraham Lincoln (CVN-72).
An Accuracy in Media report quotes CDR Tom Sobiek, commanding officer of Fighter Squadron VF-124, as saying of the 4 female pilots in his squadron that "the women are going to graduate regardless of how they performed" and reports that "the Navy was in a race with the Air Force to get the first female fighter pilot".
