A lot of solos begin with the instructor getting out of the airplane but they don’t usually do it at altitude. Authorities in Argentina are investigating the apparent suicide of flight instructor Leandro Bertazzo, 42, a former commercial pilot who had been instructing at Flying Parrot Cordoba at Coronel Olmedo Airport in central Argentina for four years. The company’s flight director Eduardo Alvarez said Bertazzo jumped from the Cessna 150 during the lesson. He said the instructor was matter-of-fact with his 22-year-old student, who reportedly had her pilot certificate but was inexperienced.
“You know what to do, keep moving forward,” Alvarez quoted Bertazzo as saying to the student. “He took his headphones off, arranged his belongings including his mobile phone, took his seatbelt off, opened the door which is very difficult to open and jumped out.” The student apparently watched his final flight because she was able to direct authorities to the field where it ended.
Beyond sick.
It’s more sad than sick. Clearly that instructor must have been suffering from depression, and it sounds like he made an attempt to not take his student with him.
How much more will it take for the aviation community as a whole to realize that mental illnesses are real, and that many are treatable without having to give up their career or hobby?
Umm. Illness. Sick. Those words are synonymous. Aren’t they? Sure, Gary’s take on it is maybe more thorough and sophisticated than Jason’s, but actually they are saying the same thing. Aren’t they? I don’t understand the difference in the votes.
Some still believe that saying “big-boned” instead of “fat” makes some actual difference, but it doesn’t in the long run. It’s merely fashion.
If the comment was “He was sick”, then yes, it’s synonymous. But the phrase “Beyond sick” implies it wasn’t a treatable illness and that the instructor doesn’t deserve any sympathy for what must have lead him to do that in the first place.
Words DO matter. Ask any instructor; e.g. “lower the flaps” vs “extend the flaps” in a Cherokee with a johnson bar flap lever mean two very different things.
Well, only if we take the words perfectly literally. The worst I could agree with is that Jason was very slightly ambiguous. By “beyond” in this context, I take it to be a modifier of extent. I don’t think he implied that treatment was impossible, only that this was an extreme case, which, I think you would agree, it is.
Words do matter. And we have to interpret often, otherwise we would require others to clarify every utterance ad nauseum.
He might have simply written “extremely sick” which would be accurate, in the same spirit, and allow for therapy. I would take the very same meaning from that, as the actual words he wrote.
More importantly, perhaps this will be yet another nudge for regulators to recognize that pilots also benefit from mental health services and the current punitive system, though slowly drifting in a positive direction, still needs reform. We are not machines. We just move the levers.
If Jason had no deep and involuntary experience with suicide, he would probably attempt to justify his two word response to a bunch of peeps who will take just about any comment (or a huge wall of text) as a good reason to feel offended. But Jason knows that life is short and the comment section is not a popularity contest.
Hence…
There must be more to that story, but I’m not sure I want to know it. It’s impossible for us to put ourselves in someone else’s head; we can only try to do that by relating something in our lives to what we assume must be going on in theirs. I have a certain amount of sympathy for Bertazzo’s struggles, but my bigger concern is for his poor student. That sort of trauma can scar one for life. I hope she gets all the counseling it takes for her to learn to live with that experience.
That his final actions seemed so pre-planned and ‘checklist’ driven…..he could have just rented the 150 himself and ran it out of fuel….. but wanted to save Flying Parrot Cordoba the aircraft but not the student’s trauma?…
Very sad, yet very common human agony…. and as Gary mentioned, could possibly have been very treatable…
Exactly. I am collecting the dislikes for asking this very same question. Why would one expose the student to risk and trauma and not just rent the damn plane alone? Its not like he would have paid the rental bill or get charged for the writeoff.
People who are suicidal are simply not rational, and it’s not really rational to expect them to be.
This statement is simply untrue.
What was the relationship between this 42 year old CFI and this already minted 22 year old female Private Pilot? Secondly, how does one, somehow get the door open far enough, long enough to get completely out of the airplane… especially within the small cockpit confines of 150… in a calm orderly fashion as described by the “student”. Lastly, how does a low time “student” have the presence of mind and aerial skill to visually locate and see him free falling, watch the event, and locate the field he ended up in. After his exit, he would have been well below and behind a 150 traveling somewhere between 60-100 mph forcing her to do a steep 180 at the minimum to see all of this… among the cabin noise, crap being sucked out of the cockpit, big weight change… in other words, the “student” having the presence of mind to suddenly become sort of a fighter pilot among all this chaos?
Lots of questions in addition to the CFI’s mental state,
Door on a 150 is not that big. And it’s not even as fast as you might think. Yeah, you can get the door open far enough. Especially if you are thin….
“having the presence of mind to suddenly become sort of a fighter pilot “? Its a 150. OK, it gets jostled a bit, the door slams shut the moment his body is out and she flies the plane. Tragic but flying is the least of her concerns. That’s the easy part. The PTSD, nightmares, etc are likely far more of an issue than piloting a 150.
To get a 150 turned intentionally around to watch this nightmare fully unfold AFTER a struggle in the cockpit, noise, dust, dirt, charts, and whatever else is loose in the cabin that gets sucked out, including watching someone intentionally jumping out, in my mind, begs several questions. To me, she is not behaving as some shell shocked, novice airplane driver as most of us would behave under the pressure of this chaotic flight. Her airmanship actions to witness this tragic outcome is remarkable. This 150 did not do a 180 by itself. Marking the location of the end of the CFI’s life, then flying back to the airport of origin, successfully landing, then leading authorities to his final location is also remarkable under these extraordinary circumstances.
There was a Trevor and his Taylorcraft story that evolved from apparrant serious danger to criminal prosecution. Since none of us has any realistic way of corroborating or challenging what actually happened, including confirmation of the true outcome of the CFI, with what the story has presented, there are good reasons to ask questions.
This whole story is sickening. However as sickening it is to all of us, in my mind, asking questions regarding the performance of the pilot, before, during, and after this bizarre course events, getting confirmation of the CFI’s demise, and the two’s relationship prior to this flight is not unreasonable, nor not empathetic.
It will be interesting to see if there is any opportunity for follow up to this bizarre flight.
As someone who has skydived from a Cessna 150 several times… it’s easy.
Once released the door will swing open a few inches on its own, a balance between suction opening it and slipstream closing it.
Shouldering the door open against the slipstream and rolling out is not hard.
The door will swing back but remain open a few inches. The windiness inside is no different than flying with the windows open (and who hasn’t done THAT in a 150 in the summer?)
As for the sudden weight change – pilots have told me they were surprised at how little the plane was affected by 200 lbs dropping free.
As for spotting the body – no fighter-pilot heroics needed. I’m assuming the plane wasn’t that high (150s with two occupants don’t climb fast or high. Or need to). Simply turning around and spotting some clothing in a field wouldn’t be hard from 2000′ feet or so. At that point it would be easy for even a frantic pilot hoping against hope he survived to radio the airport for a searcher to come to “the field next to (local landmark)”.
I am very familiar with 150’s. We owned operated a 1959 straight tail and a 1976 M model within a flight school for primary training followed by advance training in highly modified STOL 182’s. Our flight school specialized in mission aviation training. We have experience in several South American countries.
You are first for me to have actual experience skydiving from a 150. I have a couple of nephews who are very experienced skydivers departing from all sorts of aircraft. But not from a 150. For me, outside of a couple of cabin doors pop open, have never exited an airplane in flight. I did experience a large bird strike that tore the entire pilot’s side door off the airplane in an explosive split second. That included sucking out everything in the cockpit that was not secure. We have experience in dealing with low time aviators and highly experienced, high time former professional pilots in very stressful circumstances when things do not go as planned while preparing people for high performance flying in third world countries as well as highly developed countries. Since we did a lot of emergency medical flights, having sick or injured people not familiar with airplanes, including the aircraft’s cabin door operation, we did have an occasional individual try to, or inadvertently open a door in flight. Needless to say, lots of surprises.
I appreciate your comments, your experience, and conclusions. I am not saying I have answers. However, I do have many questions. No one goes through these extreme experiences and comes home the same person. Neither will this female pilot. My heart breaks for both the living and the deceased, including their respective families. .
I get some students are afraid to solo, but this is a bit far…
I was secretly hoping for an end to the story where the instructor had a parachute on and the student was briefed with something like: OK, your training went really well and I think you are ready to fly this plane single-handedly so I think I’ll just get out here and let you soar with the eagles! See you back at the airport!
There’s a saying that “all behavior makes sense with enough information.” No doubt there is a lot of information about the instructor’s mental state and psychology that is not apparent. Not that it’s rational, but it can explain the situation.
A couple of news agencies are reporting the CFI was suffering from mental health issues and had seeked help. No other details at this point.