Talk about a terrifying and tragic end to your flight lesson. It’s unimaginable, to be honest. This story comes to us from Argentina, where luckily, the student already had a pilot’s license and knew what to do. The instructor said as much before doing the unthinkable mid-flight. The student was reportedly calm and professional, but this is something no one can prepare for.
“You know what you have to do, carry on,” he said, before taking off his headset, unbuckling his seat belt, and jumping out of the plane to his death. If this student were a novice, there might’ve been two fatalities, but as noted above, the student knew how to land (via NBC News):
The 22-year-old student, identified in the news account only as Rosario, already had a pilot’s license and was able to safely land the aircraft.
The incident is now under investigation by the Federal Court of Córdoba, Argentina, and the plane has been impounded, NBC News has confirmed.
Authorities have not yet revealed why 42-year-old Leandro Andrés Bertazzo leaped to his death Saturday from the Cessna.
Eduardo Álvarez, director of the Flying Parrot Córdoba flying school where Bertazzo worked, told TN they only recently learned that the flight instructor had been under psychiatric care and that he had no clue Bertazzo was planning to kill himself.
In fact, Álvarez said, Bertazzo had gone on a training flight with another student earlier that day.
“He made this tragic decision aboard an aircraft with one other person by his side,” Álvarez said in the interview. “There’s no way to think about it or understand it, but the human mind is so complex, so treacherous.”
As for the student pilot, Álvarez said, she was “very clear, decisive, mature and professional.”
“She was very shaken, but with complete professionalism, she piloted the plane to the airfield and landed perfectly,” he said. “She maintained a very high level of training and professionalism.”
Absolutely wild.
