588 NBAP
On 10 March 1942, during a training mission, Popova was leading a formation when two aircraft got lost in a heavy blizzard and crashed, killing their crews. These were the first casualties sustained by her unit. After training, she was sent to fight in her childhood home region of the Donetsk coal fields. The regiment was called "Nachthexen" (Night Witches) by the Germans "because the whooshing noise their plywood and canvas airplanes made reminded the Germans of the sound of a witch’s broomstick."